


codename: quake

by notsosweetsugar



Series: a superhero learns to fly // skyeward avengers au [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post Avengers, Quake!Skye, almost avengers compliant, it's mainly skyeward, our favourite couple as superheroes, skyeward avengers au, working on rewriting it though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-30 16:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5171006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsosweetsugar/pseuds/notsosweetsugar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She feels like someone worth a shot.<br/>He can sense the irony, after all - it's exactly what Coulson would think. Damn, it's exactly what he thought when Coulson first brought Barton in, and then when Barton brought Romanov in. He wasn't wrong then, and he's probably not wrong now.<br/>“So, Miss Johnson,” Fury finally speaks up. “How would you feel about joing us? Ready to do some good?”</p><p><strong>basically</strong> skye and ward as members of the avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue;

**Author's Note:**

> hello. so this is skyeward avengers au i promised to write. a prologue, to be exact. it's not really anything new, and first chapter will be also similar to the pilot of aos, but that's just the beginning. all mistakes are mine, since i don't have a beta here (and i'm pretty sure i could use one tbh). this won't be updated very often, since i have plenty of work at school and aproximately zero time to write.  
> also, just to make things clear, ward's not hydra here nor he ever was. coulson was his so since the very beginning.  
> i don't own anything except my laptop (if i did, everything would be so much different).

“Agent Ward,” Maria Hill enters her office with files in her hand. She doesn't give a passing glance to the man sitting by her desk, she just takes her own seat. She knows exactly who's she dealing with, she doesn't have to check his file photo. He used to be Coulson's protegee, his friend, despite being cold and calculated. He fought among world's most famous heroes and he was even named a hero.

“I was asked to re-assing you,” Maria annouces, finally putting a folder down. “I am familiar with your… _help,_ during the Battle of New York, I also got a letter from Director Fury in which he recommended you for the Avengers Initiative.”

She stops talking for a moment and takes a sip of cold coffe that's probably standing on her desk for a while now. “But, I am also familiar with your history. I know you're not exactly a team player and that, since you're a specialist, you prefer to work alone.”

Ward stays silent. He's still not sure why he's here, in Hill's office in DC.

“You passed you test, there's nothing stopping you from coming back to the active duty after that wound you got during Chitauri situation. But...” she looks down.

The male agent almost gives her a very entusiastic “oooooooh”. He was taking physical test a few days back, but the lab told him he would have to wait a while for the results. He was okay with that – patience was one of his assets.

“What does SHIELD stands for, Agent Ward?” when Maria Hill finally continues, her voice is different, more serious.

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division,” he speaks up for the first time. He sounds intrigued.

“And what does that mean to you?”

“That someone really wanted our initials to spell out 'SHIELD'” he says, without a second thought. Hill gives him a look. “It means we're in the line between the world and the much weirder world. We protect people from news they aren't ready to hear. And when we can't do that, we keep them safe.”

This time Maria doesn't seem to have any objections. She stands up, and starts walking in Ward's direction.

“Everything's changing,” she states, calmly. “A little while ago, most people went to bed thinking that that the craziest thing in the world was a billionare in a flying metal suit. Then aliens invade New York and are beaten by, among others,” she looks directly at him before continuing “a giant green monster, a costumed hero from the 40's and a god.”

“I don't think Thor is technically a god,” Ward interrupts, because yet, he met Thor.

“You haven't been near his arms,” Maria smiles to herself.

“Acutally, I-” he tries to argue, because, after all, he was one of the _others_ Hill mentioned before. But he's shut up by the deadly look.

“The point is,” she takes a deep breath, “if I am to assign you to the Avengers or to the team I was asked to assign you, I need to make sure you're commited to the case. I know you're the best since Romanoff and Barton, and I know that you'll be a valuable asset to both teams, but if you'd prefer to pretend you need only yourself and destroy operations because of this stupid need to prove something to yourself, then you can pack your things and go home.”

Ward opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. There's nothing much to say, plus, it's still a little amazing that the Avengers want him, despite the fact that he helped beat up the Chitauri.

“So, are you ready to become a team player?” Maria asks, and he's almost sure she smirks for a second. But then, her serious expression is back.

She knows what the answer will be the second he opens his mouth. “Yes, ma'm.”

“Good,” this time, she actually manages to crack a smile. “Let's get to work, then,” she takes the file from her desk and gestures for Ward to follow her. “Oh,” she remembers something and looks over her shoulder. “Welcome to the Avengers, Agent Ward.”

 

–

 

Fury gives Coulson a call later that day. “Sorry, but this time I won,” he says. “Hill assigned him to the Avengers. You owe me ten bucks.”

“Oh, no, not again,” Coulson mutters. He's on his way to the offices, to find himself a pilot.

“Oh I'm just better than you,” Fury smiles, and remembers that time when he won a bet with Steve Rogers before the Battle of New York. “Anyway, he can't know you're alive. I know he's like a son to you, but you can't tell him or else we'll be screwed.

“I know,” Phil exhales loudly. “What do I do now? I need a specialist.”

“There is one I can recomend you. She's not a specialist, but you could really use her,” Fury sounds almost like he's excited. “Her name is Kate Bishop. I'm sure you've heard of her – they call her _Hawkeye._ ”

 


	2. i let my guard down;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> grant ward has his first mission after the transer - it doesn't go exactly as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to your feedback, which is such an amazing thing, i'm here with chapter one (it's kind of interrogation scene from pilot rewrite, but i kinda needed to do that)  
> the few chapters at the beginning won't be as interesting as i would want them to be, but later there will be some action. skyeward will be slow burn here (or at least i itend it to be slow burn), but that doesn't mean they won't have plenty of scenes together. anyway, i hope you like it.  
> i don't own anything except my laptop and an idea.

She's sitting in the interrogation room and she seems to be bored. A lot. Her hands are in some sort of gloves a scientific devision delivered them yesterday and that's probably the reason she haven't already razed the entire building to the ground.

Although she's beautiful, she's a threat, the one that needs to be neutralised.

“I decided you'd be the one to go in,” Fury informs Ward from behind his back. He doesn't even flinch – he's a trained specialist, he never gets caught off guard. “Romanoff will help,” he points at the girl who's seen in the feed.

Ward nodds. “Yes, sir.”

He's about to turn around and get to the room, when his boss stops him one more time. “Agent Ward?” his voice isn't particulary scary. “Just don't terrify her too much.”

He holds an urge to roll his eyes. “Copy that.”

He passes Natasha on his way to the interrogation room, and she follows him without a word. The files SHIELD has on the girl lie next to the door, so he grabs it and opens, as if he's reading.

“Daisy Johnson,” he says, entering the room. The brunette looks up from where she's handcuffed to the table. They didn't really have to do that, since she has glovey things on her hands, but there's not a single complaint coming from her.

“I already told you, I prefer Skye,” she answers with a small smirk. He pretends not to hear that, and becomes more of a sharp interrogator.

“There are two ways we can do this,” this time, his voice is serious, cold even, but the girl in the room doesn't even flinch.

“Oh, and one of them is the easy way?” she says, sarcasm dripping through her voice. She's not expecting an answer she gets.

“No.”

Her smirk fades. “Oh.”

She's silent after that, considering her options. There's not much she can do – cooperate and possibly get out, or say nothing and get tortured or inprisoned.

So she doesn't really have a choice at all.

“How did you find me anyway?” she makes a move like she wants to touch her hair, but the handcuffs are making it really difficult.

“Razing buildings to the ground draws attention, you might want to consider that,” scarcasm's dripping through his voice. “I'm kind of suprised, during your hacker days you worked really hard to stay off our radar. It looks like now you've made a mistake.”

Skye shifts on her chair, and a smile appears on her face. “Did I? Because now I'm in your super secret base. What is this place anyway, a plane?”

It takes every ounce of his training to stop him from hitting the table really hard (and probably breaking it in process). _Damn, she's good_

“Why are you destroying those buildings?” Natasha steps in. She's clearly playing the good cop here, which is really not her style. She's like a dynamite ready to blow everything up any second.

“Well, believe me or not, it wasn't me,” Skye's answer is loud and angry, almost like she's done with their shit (well, maybe she is, but they haven't been there more than five minutes).

“So I guess SHIELD blew them up and then accused you of doing this? That's not really our style.”

“I just got kidnapped by your style,” there's an accusation in her voice, which makes Ward even more annoyed. It's like she's a complete ignorant.

So he leans down to her. “This is serious,” his voice is sharp.

“You think I don't know that? Trust me when I say, it wasn't me.”

For some weird reason, he feels she's telling him the truth. So he stops pushing. He comes back to his previous position, giving Skye some space. She seems to be greatful for that, and there's something different in her behaviour – she takes it more seriously now.

He decides it's for the best and once again looks at the files he put on the table.

“Where have you been during New York?”

“If I told, I would have to kill you,” there it is, this teasing smile on her face again. But lasts only for a second or so. “Which means a) it's none of your business and b), I won't tell you.”

“Listen to me, Daisy-”

“ _Skye.”_

“Quit it!” Natasha, quiet for a while, decides it's about time to make them realise she's still there. She gets closer to Skye, and touches one many pockets she has on her favourite jacket. It's not usual for her to interrogate someone in more civillian clothes, but there wasn't much of a choice this time. Plus, she still has at least two guns on her. “Have you ever heard of truth serum?”

Oh, well, so that's her tactic, Ward thinks. She's going to make Skye believe they actually have that sort of thing and she'll tell them everything she knows. Although Natasha is bleffing, she looks like she has no care in the world, and there is indeed something in her pocket. She puts her hand inside said pocket and plays with the thing that's in it.

When Skye doesn't answer, just watches the pair carefully, Natasha continues. “It's called QNB-T16,” and with that, she pulls a syringe out of her pocket. There's a crystal blue liquid on it, that Ward has never seen before. “It's the best truth serum discovered. But the effects last only an hour or so,” she plays with the syringe.

“You'll have a nice little nap, and we'll have all the answers,” Ward steps in, standing closer to Natasha. She smiles, before turning around.

“I'm sorry, Fury gave me strict orders,” Natasha turns around to face Ward, and before he has a chance to ask what the hell she means, she injects him with truth serum.

“Auch,” he almost yells. The brunette, still handcuffed to the chair, raises her eyebrows. She looks at Natasha, and then back at Ward, clearly trying to understand the situation happening in front of her.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” redhead's voice is sweet and she doesn't seem particiulary sorry as she says it, “did that hurt?”

“No,” Ward says angrily, touching his arm. “But you've lost your mind. You should never do that to a member of your team. And yes, it did hurt a little, but I always try to mask my pain in front of a beautiful woman because I think it makes me more musculine. My God, this stuff works fast,” he ends quietly, turning his face away, not to face Skye, who's now raising her eyebrows even higher than before.

The situation is a little bit humiliating, to say the least.

He takes a seat on a chair, and brunette right in front of him opens her mouth, still clearly confused.

“You don't trust us?” Natasha cuts her off. She shoves the syringe back to her pocket as she speaks up, not looking directly at any of them. “Ask him whatever you want.”

She takes off younger girl's handcuffs without another word. And then, she turns around to leave. Skye snorts silently.

“Wait, you can't do-,” Ward protests, but before he has a chance to finish the sentence, the door close behind the red haired assasin. The pair stays by themselfs, him - clearly pissed, and her - clearly enjoying the situation.

“You seem nervous, agent Ward,” she says. And she starts taking her clothes off.

Well, maybe not clothes, but her jacket is definitley not on her anymore, revealing blouse with a very low neckline. He swallows hard, trying his best not to look, yet he still checks her out, and she sees it. Of course, that was her plan all along, because instead of saying something in the lines of “eyes up here”, she simply smiles and stands up.

“There's no way I'm revealing classified secrets to some girl, who decided to take us down,” he almost spits it out, and Skye leans in to the table, which makes her able to say something straight to his ear.

“You ever killed anyone?” the question seems to be innocent, but, well, it's not.

“Yes, a few,” Ward answers without a hestitation in his voice, still very unhappy with the situation. “High-risk targets. But they were terrible people, who're trying to murder very nice people. I didn't feel good afterwards.”

“And does your grandmother knows about it?” Skye smiles mischeviously, and Ward's gotta admit, her tactic's pretty good, since it almost makes him cry.

“Gramsy?”

 

–

 

Agent Ward is very much asleep, when she hears a click on the door. She's still standing, so she slowly makes her way to the entrance and catches the doorknob. She turns around one more time, to check if the guy is still sleeping, and then she leaves the room.

Outside, she sees something that looks like a very comfortable common area of the plane. There's a room just a few feet away, and it has glass walls. A man is standing there, checking something on the holotable. She's facing his back, but she's pretty sure he knows exactly where she is and that he'll stop her if she leaves.

But she's not planning on leaving, actually. She decided she might want to stick around, if they let her. So she takes all the courage she has and walks into the command centre.

“Took you long enough. Thought you were going to run,” says stranger, and finally turns around to face her. He has black skin and an eye patch on his left eye. It's not cold inside the plane, yet he's still wearing a long leather jacket that maches to his all-black outfit.

“I was planning on, actually. For about five seconds,” she answers, and moves to stand next to him. She looks at the holotable, filled with informations about mysterious earthquakes in the city of Los Angeles.

“I'm Nick Fury, the director of this entire mess, also called SHIELD,” the man introduces himself, and Skye feels kind of honored. She've heard so much about him, but she never met him, leave alone talk to him. She never wanted to, since in her opinion SHIELD was always no good, but now, after a very weary talk with agent Ward, she feels like she wasn't exactly objective about the entire thing.

“I would say it's a pleasure to meet you, but, well, not exactly,” she decides playing it cool won't hurt her too bad. Plus, she's still not sure what the hell is going on.

“Yeah, can't say don't know the feelin',” Fury clicks something on the holotable. “What did Ward told you?”

“Well, let's see,” she tries her best not to look at the screen, but it's pretty difficult since it's right in front of her. “He told me he've been to Paris multiple times, but he hasn't really see it. He also mentioned that he doesn't like your style,” she looks around, “and I kinda think I do. Scratch the whole kindapping part.”

“Yeah?” Fury asks. “I want you to tell me one thing – that was before. The earthquakes, they disappeard after New York.”

“That's right,” Skye says slowly, trying her best not to sound too sure.

“I figured you won't tell me what happened to you, so I won't ask. What I'm asking is, do you know who's doing this? Do you maybe encountered anyone like you?”

“No,” her voice is steady this time, she sounds like she's sure of what she's saying. “I haven't. The people I've met… they were different. And they had control, all the time. Just like I do now,” she takes a deep breath, like she'd just remember something not-so-pleasant.

Fury observes her for a few second, and she doesn't look at him. Young, can't say she's not pretty, and also, kind of determined. And lost. She feels powerful, and somehow different than any people he've met before in his life. She feels like someone worth a shot.

Ironical, it's exactly what Coulson would think. Damn, it's exactly what he thought when Coulson first brought Barton in, and then when Barton brought Romanov in. He wasn't wrong then, and he's probably not wrong now.

“So, Miss Johnson,” Fury finally speaks up. “How would you feel about joing us? Ready to do some good?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ titile's from control by garbage (it might not be the last time)


	3. i had a one-way ticket to a place where all the demons go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some shocking news are recived in this one (+ special guest star: kate bishop).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, first of all, i am so so sorry for the delay. i had so much going on and then i had an infamous writer's block, so there's that. there were like three different versions of this chapter, but i hope this one will satisfy you. there are probably some mistakes and i'll deal with them in the morning. my work is unbeta-d and i don't own anything. enjoy!

When they're in the air for about three hours, Ward enters the kitchen only to find Natasha, helping herself with coffe. When she sees him, she says nothing, just pulls another mug out of the cabinet.

“You know, you could at least pretend you're sorry,” he says, leaning on the counter in process. She turns her back to him and starts the coffe machine.

“Oh,” comes a response. She almost sounds like she's actually sorry, but when she turns around, there's only that mean-looking smile on her face. “But then I would be lying, wouldn't I?”

If it was Clint, he would probably stick out his tongue, but Ward only shrugs his shoulders. He feels like he's hungover and the light is a little bit too bright, although the sun is setting. The memory of the last few hours is a little bit foggy, but he can at least say he didn't reveal any classified information to a random ex-member of the Rising Tide.

As for her, she surely has a _specific_ skillset, but she's also annoying as hell. She actually kind of reminds him of Natasha, the way she carries herself with this self-confidence. There's also darkness in her, hidden, but still seen by a practiced eye.

Nat's darkness is not coming back, but what about Skye's? Maybe she's just hiding it so she can attack later, when they're the most vunerable. But, for some weird reason, Ward thinks that's not. He actually thinks she may be a good person with a troubled past.

Something like him.

“That Skye, she's intruging, isn't she?” Natasha hands him his coffe and sits on the counter, so she can have a good look at him. She takes a sip from her mug and smiles with pleasure. Oh, she does love coffe.

“She's annoying,” Ward says. Of course he knows the redhead will see right through him, but for now he's just uncertain of what to think of _Skye_. She definitely is _something,_ but can they trust her?

“She's also pretty hot, don't you think?” he almost chokes on his coffe and Natasha sends him a satysfying smile.

“Need I remind you you're in a stable relationship for about six years now?” he puts down his mug and caughs few more times.

“Seven,” she corrects him. “But I'm sure Clint wouldn't mind. We could have a threesome!”

Although Ward knows the last one is clearly a joke, he almost chokes again. But this time he keeps his composure and puts on a perfect poker face. “How about an orgy? You can always ask Fury to join you.”

Nat almost starts laughing, but takes another sip of her coffe to prevent that.

“But seriously, why did Fury even brought her in? I mean, I get she has this abilities, but that's not usually what we do when we encounter an enchanced person.”

Ward opens his mouth to answer, but realises he doesn't have anything to say. Because that's a very interesting question. If the find an enchanced person, they put their name in the index and assign an agent to keep them in check.

And Skye? She's not in the index, and Grant starts to doubt she ever will be, she's not left alone, she flies with them to the HQ after having a real-life talk with him (and probably Fury).

“Maybe he wants to recruit her as an agent. Since we, you know, suck,” he quips and Natasha cracks a smile.

“We most definitley do,” she confirms, taking an apple from the bowl on the counter. She plays with it before taking a bite. “Remember that time you went on the top of the wrong building when Clint and I were your extraction?”

Ward sighed with annoyment. “I told you like, million times. My cover was blown and there were at least ten guys chasing me. I chose the first building I saw.”

“Whatever you say, Agent Ward.”

He once again shots her a dirty glare, but she doesn't even react, only bites her apple with that smirk of hers. He can't believe they're actually friends.

They stay in silence for a couple minutes – Natasha consumes her apple and then pulls her phone out of her pocket, while Ward stares at the fridge, thinking about his day.

He does that quite a lot. It's a specialist thing, especially during undercover ops. But he's not at one, yet there's still a lot to think about. For example, why would Fury even tell Natasha to inject him the truth serum. Sure, that guy is pretty crazy (and Ward can say that for sure after about seven years working with him from time to time), but that's a risky move even for him. As a level seven agent, Grant knows a lot of secrets a random hacker shouldn't.

There's also Natasha. She's off since New York and he assumes it's because of Clint. Their realtionship is kept in secret. The rest of the team was pretty shocked when they annouced they're coming back to their apartment about two weeks after the battle.

Grant wasn't, mostly because he knows them since the academy. He knew them before they started a relationship (because 'started dating' is not exactly a term he could use while describing them). God, there's even a thing that happened between him and his _supposed_ best friend eight years ago.

“Penny for your thoughts,” when he looks at Natasha, her phone is put away and she's staring at him with curious eyes. It would put him in the bad light if he said he didn't notice her putting it away, but he wasn't really paying attention.

That's a _very_ bad thing for a specialist.

“Earth to Ward.”

He's distracted. _Very_ distracted.

“Is that the girl? She got under your skin?” he finally acknowledges Nat's words.

“Maybe, I don't know,” he lowers his gaze.

“Because you seem off since the second you left that interrogation room,” she runs a hand through her hair. They're still short, but grew a little since New York and she's not planning on cutting them anytime soon. “Listen, I wouldn't have given you that serum myself, but I had direct orders from Fury. For what it's worth, I think it was a stupid plan. But it worked.”

“Yeah, that's not it,” he answers slowly, looking at his hands. “I just need some sleep,” he brushes it off and waves his hand. “I'll be in one of the bunks if you need me.”

 

–

 

The knock on the door wakes Clint from his nap. Or maybe not a nap – he's just been lying in bed with his closed eyes, trying his best not to think of Loki.

So when he hears someone's outside, he's almost relieved. He's at the door in seconds and opens them with a welcoming smile.

He's not expecting to see Kate in the doorway.

“Hey,” she says, eyeing him before entering. She has two huge duffel bags she leaves on the floor and takes a seat at the counter like it's her own place.

“Hey yourself,” Clint mutters, closing the door. He turns around, but doesn't really move, just stares at his friend. She seems… ready to jump in some sort of action. She's wearing her hair up (and she never does that) and the clothes she has on are comfortable, yet stylish.

Little does Clint know, she just picked up the first things she saw after opening her closet.

“What's up?” he asks casually, finally heading to the kitchen island. He opens a cabinet and choses his favourite mug – the one Natasha gave him when she still didn't know where they're standing – and turns on the coffe machine Nat bought him a year later.

Everything at this place screams her name – starting with the coffe machine and the dishes, to tiles in the bathroom and wallpaper in their bedroom.

He's not used to missing her – after all, they're both agents, they go on separate missions all the time. The fact that they're a team doesn't mean they get to spend all of their time together.

It's just…

This time is different. It's her first solo mission after New York. She has back up (probably the only person Clint trusts with her life, and he knows she's very capable of taking care of herself) and that's just a find-and-capture mission (as far as he knows), but there's still something not right about it.

Maybe it's because he hasn't been cleared to come back to the field yet.

“Hello? Have you been listening to me?” Kate waves her hand to catch his attention. He's still standing at the coffe machine, but his coffe is ready, for a while obviously.

“I, uh, sorry. I got distracted,” he says and grabs his mug. He takes a stool next to Kate and she looks at him, trying and failing in hiding her concern.

“Are you sure you're okay? I know you had a tough two months and I wasn't there enough,” she sounds like she really is sorry, which is so suprising Clint raises his eyebrows. Kate avoids talking about serious stuff every since the assault on her about three years ago – she prefers training as a solution to all problems.

(She's trying to best Clint in archery, but she still needs to train, which makes her so irritated.)

“Kate,” the older Hawkeye looks at her, this time with one eyebrow raised. “I'm fine, really, I guess I just didn't get enough sleep. Tell my, why are you barging in here in such an ungodly hour with two duffel bags and in combat clothes.”

She rolls her eyes. “Like I haven't said that already. I came here to retrieve my bow and arrows. I got a job offer. At SHIELD.”

Clint almost chokes at his coffe. “From who?”

“That's classified.”

Right.

“I need to be in some SHIELD facility in six hours and it's a five-hour drive, so I'm kinda on the clock here,” she sends him an apologetic smile. “Promise I'll be careful?”

Barton just sighs. He knows Kate too well to try to talk her out of it.

“Just… call me some time. You know, in case you're bored, or somethin',” he almost cracks a smile. It doesn't happen often these days. Brunette nods with a small smile before leaving her stool. She approaches the closet in the hall and takes a bow from there.

It's one of her favourites – Clint got it for her on her twentieth birthday. Her arrows are also there, so she puts them in a quiver. When she's done, she closes the door and turns around.

“You know, I think I'm actually gonna miss you,” she smiles at her friend. His wearing that dorky smile that makes her believe everything's going to be okay.

For a second she forgets she's not going to see him for a long time. She forgets both of their lives are at stake everyday they're in the job. It's just her, a girl with a troubled past, leaving her equally troubled best friend.

She gives him a quick hug and he kisses the top of her head. It's nothing Nat would be afraid of – Kate's like a little sister to him.

“See you soon, kiddo,” he hands her one of her bags. She takes the other one and catches the doorknob.

“I'll call ya,” she sends him one more smile.

“I hope so.”

When she leaves, Clint feels even more alone than before. He has an urge to call Nat, just to hear her voice.

He doesn't.

He spends the rest of his day watching reality tv and ignoring Stark's calls and texts.

 

–

 

“Sir, you wanted to see me?” Ward opens the door without knocking. He's in the plane office for the first – and probably – the last time ever. He sees something that he wasn't expecting at all. The office looks very similar to the one his former SO used to have in the HQ in DC – there are some original colectioner items on the shelves, probably glued to the wood.

But it's Fury behind the desk, not Coulson. There's also one more person in the room – Skye. She's sitting on a small sofa, clearly confused.

“Yes,” he says. “I wanted to see you, because I have an… assigment for you.”

It's pretty possible Ward has now question marks in his eyes.

“I know I said you will have some more free time after we get back to New York, but there's been a change of plans. Sort of,” director clears his throat. “You will stay in Stark's fancy tower and you will train someone. I'm going to trust you on this one. I hope you won't fail me, Agent Ward?” Fury raises one of his eyebrows. It looks kind of scary, even for Grant.

It takes him a few seconds to realise that was a question. “No, of course. You can count on me, sir.”

Fury seems to be satisfied. He turns his face to Skye and smiles. “Great. Miss Johnson, this is your new SO.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr.](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title from sia's alive.  
> \+ team bus in this au looks like [that.](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com/post/139253505851/phil-exhales-loudly-what-do-i-do-now-i-need-a)  
> 


	4. i just need to be at home;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skye arrives at the avengers tower and natasha and ward learn something really disturbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't actually planning on posting this one tonight, but i felt inspired so i finally finished it. as always, all mistakes are mine since i don't have a beta and also, i own nothing but the idea.  
> (also, i wanted to remember you guys, coulson was ward's so in this one, in case that wasn't clear or someone forgot about that).

After the touchdown, Skye is pulled inside the car by Ward himself. He ties her eyes so she can't see anything at all – which _is_ kind of perverse – and drives all the way without as much as turning on a radio. She doesn't even know where they are and she can't really count on her new SO (it means supervising officer, not significant other, he told her that much) to explain that part. So after what seems like hours – she spends most of the time talking and asking questions and the only answers she gets are loud grunts – when they arrive _somewhere,_ she's ready to jump out of the car and kick Ward's ass for not telling her anything.

But when they arrive to the place that seems to be some sort of hangar, she forgets about her annoyance, too busy trying to figure out where they are. Director Fury arrives shortly after with two male agents – one of them is incredibly hot, with sandy hair, but he's sadly not as hot as Ward – and leaving them behind, leads Skye and her grumpy new SO into the elevator.

He chooses the floor marked as “common area” and Skye soon realises that all of the buttons inside this elevator have this sort of names attached to them. The most interesting ones are those just under the common area – labs, guest floors and floors with names. Tony and Pepper's floor is right under the lab, then it's Bruce's, under it there's Steve's, then Thor's, some guest floors, Ward's (Ward has his own floor?), one called gym and then, finally, Clint's and Natasha's.

It takes her about five seconds to realise those are not just some random names. When she does, she opens her mouth to say something, but at the same moment, the elevator stops and door open, reaviling a huge, open space with couches that look incredibly comfortable.

“Mr Stark is in the kitchen, expecting you,” a voice comes from God knows where. Skye raises her head and the same voice with british accent adresses her. “Welcome to the Avengers Tower, miss Johnson. My name is Jarvis.”

“Cool,” she says silently. Ward eyes her with some sort of disapproval, but she ignores him. After all, she's just about to meet Iron Man, her personal favourite avenger.

It's Ward who leads them to the kitchen. Fury smirks and says something so quietly Skye can't really hear him, but she ignores it as soon as she sees Tony.

The kitchen is huge and modern. Stark is rummaging through the fridge, wearing only a purple robe and a pair of black slippers. He doesn't even turn around to face them.

“Where'd you leave Romanoff?” is all he asks. He doesn't get an answer.

“This is Skye, our new asset,” Fury says instead, slightly turning his head so that he can partially face her. Tony still doesn't acknowledge her presence, so she opens her mouth, when suddenly Ward speaks up.

“New asset?” he says sarcasticaly. “She might as well be one of those sweaty cosplay girls crowding around Stark Tower.”

That makes her really offended, especially since one of her heroes is right there with them in the room. “I wouldn't-,” she states, but then shies away. “It was one time…”

Ward only rolls his eyes, but the sound of Skye voice finally makes Tony turn around.

He looks just like Skye imagined him – this sort of cool uncle, who gives his nephews some alcohol before they're allowed to drink and makes the most expensive gifts. Sure, she saw him before on tv, but seeing him standing in front of her is so, so different.

“Nice to meet you,” she finally stammers.

“Why is she here, again?” Stark doesn't answer, just looks at Fury. And that's initially what pisses Skye off. Or maybe it's just the fact Ward keeps looking at her with this disrespect and disbelief that a girl like her is even there. Former Rising Tide hacker, a freak with powers.

So she raises her hand and just feels the power coming from her fingers in waves. Tony flies backwords and the fridge closes as he hits it with his back. Fury is torn between laughing and reprimending his new protegee, while Ward is ready to jump into action and handcuff her as soon as his boss gives him the order.

Tony just straightens himself and… smiles.

“The pleasure is all mine, kid,” he shakes her hand, as she raises her eyebrow, trying to play cool but instead just _exploding_ with confusion. “I feel like you and I will get along just fine.”

 

–

 

They give her her own floor, just above Ward's. It's so huge, probably bigger than the entire orphanage she lived in when she was younger. There's one incredible bedroom with an en suite bathroom that's probably the same size, a warderobe with some clothes already inside, a second room - an office/mini-library, with some books on the bookshelves and a big living room connected with a kitchen. It's all in brown, red and beige and it looks so _her_ it's really suprising.

Two boxes with her stuff feel so small in this little apartment, especially since there are already loads of things for her.

She sees the laptop sitting on the coffe table after she finishes the tour. She walks there only to find a note attached to it.

 _I left you some things in the apartment, I hope you like them. There's also a credit card with no limit on it, a set of keys and a prototype_ _of new_ _StarkPhone in the drawer next to the door if you'd want it. I'm looking forward to officially meeting you – P. Potts_

Skye's eyes open even wider, as she walks to the said drawer and opens it. And just like the letter said, aside from the keys, there's a credit card with her name on it and a box with a brand new phone inside. It feels like heaven.

She wonders how the hell CEO of Stark Industries knew exactly what she likes, but then remembers Jarvis. She stopped wondering how she found out she'll be staying in the tower – Fury must've informed her before they even landed in New York.

Everything is so surreal Skye still has some trouble believing it's not actually a dream. But if this was a dream, there would be no grumpy agent Ward and those insane powers. Sure, she can control them now, but she still feels like a freak from time to time. Fine, most of the time.

Because a few months ago, she was just a hacktivist, trying to make a change in the world. But then, something extraordinary happened to her. And now, there she is, in the Avengers Tower, her new home, siding with SHIELD, the organisation she once fought against.

A knock at the door stops her train of thoughts. She closes the drawer.

“Miss Johnson, agent Ward is outside. Shall I let him in?” Jarvis asks.

It kind of suprises her, since he told her he'll see her at the morning, he also said he'll make sure Jarvis will wake her up when the time's right. But she nods her head, already aware of the fact that there are probably some cameras in the room and that simple gesture is enough for the AI.

It takes her a few seconds to realise what's different about Ward when she sees him outside – he's no longer wearing his black suit. Instead, he has a white t-shirt and jeans on. He's barefoot and his hair are kind of a mess. He looks almost like a normal man, not an agent/robot.

Except he's carrying a book that looks heavy and his face still looks like he wants to murder her.

“Hey,” she says before he enters. She barely has the time to move away so that she can avoid him bumping into her. “Nice to see you too, Robot. Come on in.”

“I brought you a SHIELD code, you might want to flip through it later,” he says, placing the book on one of the armchairs. She gives it a passing glance before again looking at him. “So, how do you like it here?” he asks, avoing her glance.

It catches her completely off guard. She honestly thought he was all business. He seems kind of unnerved by his own question as well. “Fine. Everything here is great.”

“That's good,” he answers, moving closer to the door – and to her, at the same time. “I'll see you in the morning. If you need anything, just ask Jarvis.”

“Copy that,” she jokes, but he doesn't even smile. There's an awkward moment when he waits for her to move so that he can reach the doorknob, but when she does, he leaves, not saying another word.

Skye just sighs. This is all so weird.

But, feeling a tiny bit of responsibility, she walks to the living room and grabs the book.

 

–

 

Instead of coming back to his apartment, Ward chooses to have a snack. Sure, it's way past nine, but it's been a long day, so he deserves some of Stark's unhealthy food he keeps in the common kitchen upstairs.

He's not suprised when he sees the lights on – there's almost always someone upstairs, usually Tony or Pepper, sometimes Bruce, because his eating sheldue sucks. He is, however, suprised to see Natasha, fixing herself a cup of tea. He was sure the assigment she got from Fury would take her at least a day longer, and even if that wasn't the case, he was expecting her to go back to her apartment a few blocks from the tower, the one she shares with Clint.

“Hey there,” she says, raising her head so that she can see who's approaching her. Not that she doesn't know it already. She's a spy, a goddamn good one at that.

“Hi,” he supplies, reaching for the mug someone left at the counter. He walks to the dishwasher and opens it to put the mug inside. It's sort of his thing, cleaning after all of them. But now, there's not too much of the Avengers at the Tower – only Tony and Bruce, plus Pepper. Thor's not back from Asgard, Steve has his own place at Brooklyn and Clint and Natasha barely come here these days, although they both have their own floors in the building (it looks like Stark still doesn't know they're together, much to Pepper and Bruce's amusement).

“You want tea?” Natasha asks him, reaching for the cabinet. He nods, and she prepares him earl grey, the only kind of tea he drinks – without sugar, lemon or milk. Ward, in the meantime, takes Pringles from the drawer. He takes a seat at the table and waits for Natasha to grab one next to him.

“So…,” she starts, setting the mug in front of him, “aren't you gonna ask me why I'm here?”

He just sighs. “I was going to,” he states, “but then I thought you'll tell me yourself if you feel like it.”

“Yeah,” she smiles, but the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. It's not usual for Natasha to be wearing that kind of sad expression. She's usually teasing or sassing everyone, smirking all the time or just making annoyed or unimpressed faces.

They're not talking for a moment, both of them sipping their teas and eating chips. Silence is comfortable and neither of them feels like breaking it. But it's Ward who finally does.

“Skye's downstairs,” he annouces, “Stark gave her her own floor, just above mine. I'm in charge of training her, but she gave us quite the show earlier.”

“Yeah, Fury mentioned that,” she says, biting a chips. “I was at HQ, filling some paperwork.”

And that's, Ward thinks, where the dog is buried.

“And I found her file. At first, I wasn't sure where I heard the name Daisy Johnson. But now I know,” she hands him the file he didn't even notice before. “It's mostly redacted, but I persudaded Fury to show me just a little bit of it. It looks like she's been on SHIELD radar for years now.”

Ward reads something and Natasha observes his eyes opening wider, the same way hers were just a few hours ago.

When he finally raises his eyes from the file, his expression is blank.

“She's the girl Linda Avery and all of the others died for,” he states slowly and Natasha nods. “She's the 0-8-4 Coulson was looking for.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM!  
> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title's from me, myself & i by bebe rexhna and g-eazy


	5. you're in the corner waiting for my love;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skye meets steve (also some skyeward because i love you guys a lot).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry. i really am. it's been three months, and this chapter is really crappy. but i tried, i really did. (+ there's a part of dialouge that i adore, it has something to do with strangling.) anyway, here it is. i'm really sorry for the mistakes i probably made, i'll try to catch them later.

After Ward finds out his mentor spent a better part of his SHIELD carrier searching for the very girl he's now training, he acts differently. Not because he wants to – but because he can't help it. Everytime he sees her, he remembers how Coulson trained him, how he spent hours talking to him, making him feel valuable. Obviously, he always has expression full of regret and maybe sadness, and if Daisy – or Skye, as she prefers to be called – notice that, it will be obvious he has actual feelings.

That's why he tries to avoid her stares and tries not to talk to her about anything other than the right way to do push-ups or the nature of the next exercise. He's not sure why, but he cares about what she thinks about him.

Plus, she can be a real pain in the ass. She learns fast and some of her comments are pretty funny, but she keeps complaining about the hours and the exercises that are all exhausting and she 'probably won't even need them'. The only thing that stops Ward from yelling at her is the fact, that he used to be the same (and also the fact that sometimes Natasha is watching, hidden in the corner of the training room).

After almost a month of daily training, Ward knows a few things about his trainee. He knows she's not ready to give up, but also that she doesn't have that sort of motivation he had during his sessions with Coulson. And most of all, he knows she doesn't really like him.

It's obvious even now – while he's hanging a punching bag, she keeps talking to him, but never looks up, to check if he's even listening (of course he is).

“Okay, am I really that boring?” she asks from the corner where she's streching. Ward turns around, kind of suprised. She's sitting astride with an annoyed expression on her face. A few strands escaped from her braid and they're all over her face. She looks so young and innocent like that, without make-up and clearly pissed at him, and it makes him wonder if he ever looked as innocent.

“You're not,” he answers a few seconds too late, after he composes himself. She sends him a very unconvinced look. “I was listening,” he's not even sure why he said that. He doesn't know when it changed, but somehow he doesn't want her to think he doesn't care.

Skye still doesn't look convinced.

“You just told me about the original Star Wars trilogy because you though I didn't understood your last reference.”

She opens her mouth to ask him a question, but he cuts her off. “For the record – I did understand it. And now twenty push-ups.”

Somewhere during these first month Skye learned it's best to do push-ups when he says, because, much to his eternal suprise, she actually does what she's asked to. Ward's not sure when did that happen, but he recalls that just yesterday she tried to trick him into doing them with her. Of course, she failed.

“When will I,” she starts somewhere during her fifth push up, already red from exhaustion, “start learning something useful? Like shooting a gun or strangling a man in twenty different ways?”

Ward immidiately stops reajusting the punching bag and slowly turns around. “Do you _want_ to strangle someone in twenty different ways?”

“I don't know,” she smiles, clearly pleased with herself. “It was just a suggestion.”

Ward turns around, so that she didn't see him smile. “You know, you're a fast learner. I think you're better than some of the best agents after month's training.”

He says that to change the subject but also because he feels a sudden need to say something nice to someone. And because it's true.

He realises his mistake when Skye stops doing push-ups and stands up. He can hear her approaching him.

“Was that a compliment?” she asks, as he turns around. Her voice makes him smirk and she squeals. “A compliment and a smile?”

“A comment,” he corrects her, but doesn't hide his face. It's nice, for a change, to exchange smiles with someone who isn't Natasha.

“A compliment and a smile,” Skye repeats. Ward notices she's trying to hide how much she's affected by it. He decides he's going to give her some of those compliments more often. It's not his style, but training anyone is also not his style. And, of course, changing his mind about someone is totally not his style. He's usually right after the first assesment of a person, but somehow Skye turned out to be so much more than he thought.

He's almost scared by that thought, even more when he realises it's the truth, so he changes his expression to his normal, more annoyed one.

“Punching bag,” he orders.

 

–

 

Three hours later, they leave the elevator arm to arm, like everyday. After their training, they leave to their respectable floors and make themselves presentable. It takes them both exactly fourty five minutes, and then Ward enters the elevator and rides to Skye's floor, where they meet. It became a routine, but first two or three times, it was an accident.

They usually eat breakfest only with Pepper, sometimes joined by Bruce or Tony, and on occasion also by Clint and Natasha. Breakfasts are usually quiet, Pepper asks about training and Ward asks about company. Sometimes Skye joins the conversation, but usually she's just eating all the food (she claims morning training sessions make her extra hungry). If Bruce joins them, he doesn't say much, while Tony keeps babbling about his inventions and asking Jarvis completely unrelated questions. Skye likes them both, even though they're completely opposites. It seems Stark took a liking on her as well, as he chooses subjects only the two of them can understand, and they're occasionaly joined by Bruce if the subject makes him more alive.

Somewhere during her first week in the tower, Skye named Tony and Bruce _Science Bros_ and refuses to retire that nickname. It's no suprise since it annoys only Ward, and another thing that Stark and Skye have in common is their mutual need to make Ward's life harder.

When Natasha and Clint join them, they have big breakfasts with hectoliters of coffe. But today, when the leave the elevator arm to arm, there's no Natasha leaning by the counter and no Clint, silently sipping his coffe.

Pepper, as always, is sitting at the table, browsing the net on her phone. Stark is drinking his coffe on the seat next to her, wearing, as usual, his purple robe. Bruce is also there, in the process of adding sugar to the green tea he likes so much (they share the tea, Skye and Bruce, all kinds, because the two of them are addicted to it).

Standing by the counter is a very muscular man. Skye can only see his back, but hell, he's _huge,_ preparing something with his very muscular hands.

“Steve's here,” Pepper annouces as a matter of explenation, and comes back to her phone. A man, blonde, Skye notices, turns around and sends them a brilliant smile.

“He's making us breakfast because we are all too lazy to make it ourselves, and too hungry to wait for you to make it for us,” Tony adds.

There's a choke from the kitchen that sounds a lot like a muffled laugh, and a few seconds later the very same muscular man serves waffles for breakfast. He looks up to see how many plates should he add to the table and there he is, Captain America in the flesh.

When he notices Skye, he moves to her direction. It's only when he's in front of her that she realises neither she or Ward moved from their spot for a few minutes.

“You must be Skye,” Captain says, looking at her sympathetically, “Pepper told me about you.”

After two weeks among some of the Avengers, Skye learned how to respond. “Good things, I hope,” and she sends him a wide smile, the same smile who makes weird things to Ward's face. “It's an honor to meet you, Captain,” she adds, not forgeting good manners, and shakes his hand.

“Please, call me Steve,” he answers. Then, he moves to Ward and they do that weird, manly hug, and it kind of freaks Skye out – so much she immidiately leaves to the kitchen to help herself with a cup of coffe.

She's just about to take her usual place, across from Ward, when there's a very loud _ding_ (she's sure it wasn't there before) and elevator door open, revealing director Fury, Clint, Natasha, deputy director Hill and agent with sandy hair Skye saw when they brought her to the tower. It looks like they were all squeezed inside, because Natasha, the first to leave, exhales loudly when she's out.

“Huh,” Stark says, kind of abstentmindly. Skye already knows, he's not fully awake if he didn't have at least three cups of coffe. “I would've sworn it's a small elevator.”

But Fury ignores his comment completely. For a second, he looks for someone in the room, and then his eyes find Skye. “Miss Johnson,” he says instead of hello, “I hope Ward taught you something. We have a mission for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title is from totally unrelated but totally amazing new song, fuck with myself by banks.


	6. load up the guns;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skye makes new friend (who also happens to be mr-dark-tall-and-handsome's friend from the academy) and he knows something's in the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second update this week, yay! i don't know if i can keep this going, but i'm having a flow. i like this chapter only a little bit more than the previous one, buuut the real action will start soon.

“You didn't tell me about Coulson,” Ward corners Fury, when everyone's closed in the conference room, where Maria is briefing Skye for her first mission with SHIELD.

(Well, not _everyone._ Pepper has to work, and Tony and Bruce disappeared in their respective labs.)

Ward said he's going to bring Skye some tea the minute he saw Fury leaving the room. He wanted to talk to him about what Natasha found in the files for a while now, since the day it happened, but Fury didn't pick up his phone and didn't visit the tower during those last two weeks. Even now, he doesn't wanna talk.

For a second, there's a defeat and guilt on director's face, but it fades away so quickly Ward's not sure he didn't just imagine that. When he blinks, Fury's one eye is looking at him cautiously, waiting for something more, so that the director could explain himself.

“You didn't tell me about his connection with Skye. Natasha found it in the files two weeks ago,” he explains patiently. The director exhales and starts walking. Ward follows him to the kitchen, when Fury pours himself a cup of cold coffe. It has to taste terrible, but the director doesn't even twist when he takes a sip.

“I didn't realise it until agent Romanoff brought it to my attention. I spent some time searching for the information myself, I even tried to find some sources, but I didn't find out much.”

“About what, exactly?” Ward's words

Fury sighs and in this moment he's more human than the entire time Ward knows him. Like he really cares. “About the girl. Her being an 084. I redacted all the files regarding her, it's now Level 10. But I believe you deserve to see everything we've gathered. It's not much and it doesn't tell you anything new, but I will have Hill deliver it to you later.”

Ward nodds and his lips are thin line. He moves to the kettle to boil some water for the tea he promised to bring. His moves are slow and it's like he's been doing this all his life – boiling water, putting mugs and teas from the cabinets. He knows exactly which mug is Skye's and which tea she likes best, although he would never tell that to anyone. He even pretends to hesitate when he opens the cabinet, as if his not sure which tea he should choose.

But he takes the right one.

“We should get back,” Fury says. He finished his cold coffe and helped himself with one of the cookies that stand in a huge, bronze bowl Stark inherited from his mother.

Ward abstently nods and follows the director to the conference room. He leaves the cup in front of Skye, who doesn't seem to notice it. She's focused on Maria and Tom – agent Sanders – who came with them, now helping the deputy director, showing some possibly related photographs on the screen.

“Jackson Brody throws the ball every year,” Maria explains, not acknowledging her boss' or Ward's presence. “This year, instead of in the French Hall, it's thrown in his villa in Miami. He claims it's because he's afraid that the building will 'fall on their heads',” after saying that, she looks briefly at Skye. Ward can see the younger woman tense, but then slowly relax, as Maria's glare comes back to the files in front of her.

Behind Ward, Natasha moves her hand and scoots him a similar file. He thanks her with a nod and opens it, slowly going through the papers as Maria speaks.

“We believe Brody has some information about the mysterious earthquakes. He resigned from some of his activities and, as it turned out, the building was later rased to the ground. His complany has three buildings in California only, and not even one was damaged. He was believed to be doing some illegal business after Texas, which means he's on SHIELD radar for a while now.”

There's Brody's picture in the file. He looks just like a wealthy businessman doing shady business would look – especially with the goatee and in white suit. He kind of reminds Ward of Stark, but looks way more… bad.

“Brody has a incredibly good security system and his computers can't be hacked remotely. That's why we need someone on the inside. You, miss Johnson, will find his computers, hack into them and copy everything to that drive. You'll be accompanied by another agent, who'll make sure you won't get caught in the process.”

Fury doesn't stand up when he says: “I think it's best if we establish that agent will be agent Ward. He knows you best, and he knows what you're able to do.”

Although he would never admit it, he kind of feels relieved he's going to be the one. It's not like he doesn't trust anyone with her, it's just… He feels better knowing he'll be a person responsible for her safety.

“For the last few months, we were investing in Brody's company as a young businessman named James Forman. They contacted a few times, but Brody never saw his face. That's why agent Ward will go as him, and you, miss Johnson, will be his girlfriend. Those are the profiles of your covers,” Maria chooses two files from the pile next to her and hands them to both Ward and Skye. “You have to know everything in there, you have to become that person,” she looks at their new asset. “I hope you can do that.”

Skye nodds and opens the file. Ward leaves his next to the one Natasha gave him earlier.

“You have a week to memorize everything. We'll get you a hotel room you'll arrive the day before the ball. If you have any questions, now's the time,” Maria finishes and Tom turns off the screen.

“How are they gonna get out?” it's Steve who asks that, moving her chair closer to the table.

“If everything goes smoothly, they will be picked up by a car the day after the ball, but if something goes wrong, there will be helicopter waiting for them in the hangar couple streets further. Agent Barton will be the pilot,” Fury annouces calmly.

Natasha tenses on her seat, like she didn't have that piece of information, and even Clint looks like he's seriously suprised, which means it wasn't something he learned earlier, too. And it is kind of strange, since he hasn't been cleared for combat yet.

“And now,” Fury smiles, like he's pleased with himself, “do you have any food here? I'm starving.”

 

–

 

After the briefing, everyone suddenly disappear. Natasha, Fury and Clint stay in the conference room and make it very clear they want to be left alone, Ward goes somewhere with Hill, clutching his two files like they're the most important things in the world, and Steve, after leaving a few sandwiches in the conference room, mutters something about cleaning his room. That leaves Skye alone in the common area until agent Sanders, the one with the sandy hair, comes out of nowhere and joins her on the couch.

There's an episode of _One Tree Hill_ on, the one in which Lucas and Peyton fight and kiss (and Skye really likes this episode), but nobody's really watching it.

“So you're the famous Ward's protegee,” he finally says. Skye looks at him suprised. His voice is nice, with a british accent. From where she sits, on the other side of the huuuge couche, she can appreciate the fact, that his handsome. He's not really tall, but muscular, with a little scruff, and his short, sandy hair are kind of a mess. It would be so much easier if he was her type.

But no, of course, her type are handsome, black-haired and brown-eyed, tall supervising officers.

That though scares her so much she almost drops the remote. But she doesn't. Instead, she turns her head to the right to fully face agent Sanders. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“Well, it's the first time Ward is anyone's SO,” he explains, like it's common knowledge. Well, maybe it is, but not for Skye.

“Really?” she asks.

“As far as I know, he claims he can't really teach anyone. At least that's what he said in the academy,” agent Sanders shrugs his shoulders and grabs a cookie from the other bowl. They're literally everywhere, even in each apartment, and it makes Skye think Stark has to really like cookies.

“You were in the academy together,” it's more a statement than a question on her lips, but the man nodds anyway, swallowing the rest of what he has in his mouth.

“We're friends every since,” he explains. “And, let me tell you, being Ward's friend is a great place to be. Although he's like the pro player of Pokemon.”

Skye almost chokes in suprise, even though she doesn't have anything in her mouth. Sanders only smiles. “Okay, I'm joking, he sucks at video games. But that doesn't stop me from playing with him. I always team up with him and I always regret it, because agents Romanoff and Barton win with us every single time.”

This piece of information is like… gem. Skye can now officialy make fun of Ward forever. But somehow, when she hears it, the first thing she thinks is that it's cute, and that's exactly the thing she would be expecting. Which is not a very good sign.

It shows that she's getting attached.

“What about you?” she finally speaks, “other than video games, what are you good at, agent Sanders?”

He smiles, and damn, this smile makes him look even hotter than before. Still, not her type. “Call me Tom, if you please,” he says and it's so british she feels like with her first boyfriend, a guy she met in London. He was such a Englishman he used to drink tea everyday at 3 o'clock.

“Okay then, Tom. Tell me more about you,” she only now decides she wants to flirt with him. Take her mind off the fact that she's terrified she won't do well on a mission, take her mind off the fact that Ward knew exactly which mug is her favourite and which tea she likes best.

“What do you want to know?” he remains oblivious to her smiles. But he's a trained agent, a very well trained at that, which makes Skye sure he's not interested in her. “Perhaps you want me to tell you all about my time in Academy with Ward. Or about Ward.”

Her jaw drops open for a second, but then she closes her mouth and opens it again, this time to form a sentence that makes sense.

“Since he's your SO, and all,” Tom smiles this time, and his smile is cocky. “But don't worry,” his words make her realise she might've showed him, she cares about Ward more than she should (which is totally not true, right?), “your secret's safe with me.”

And she is so screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT EVEN SORRY.
> 
> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com/)  
> \+ title's from indigo puff by sundara karma  
> \+ in case you were wondering [that's how tom looks!!!](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com/post/147353265521/agent-tom-sanders-skyeward-avengers-au)  
> 


	7. please don't make any sudden moves;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skye confronts ward (let me tell you, you won't be happy with the outcome) + clintasha interlude;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was supposed to look different and skyeward's fight wasn't supposed to happen until after the mission, but it made more sense to change it (also, the first version of this chapter disappeared from my computer and it was one thing i was actually happy with, so i'm still in denial). the clintasha scene also had like five different versions and i'm not actually happy with the outcome (the one that disappeard was much better, let me tell you).

Ward leaves Skye in the _interrogation room,_ as Stark likes to call it –

 

(“Oh, c'mon, guys, this is going to be so fun.”

“No,” Natasha says, voice firm, “we are _not_ going to kindnap criminals from prison and interrogate them in here just because they might be planning something bad.”)

 

– and takes the files Maria left him. He can't really read them in front of the girl, not only because there's the name _Johnson_ on the first page. It's because that's something that belonged to Phil, a thing he's been investigating for the better part of his life as SHIELD agent. If Ward has to invade his mentor's privacy, the least he can do is do it in private.

That's why he orders his trainee to memorize all the small details about her cover, Evelyn Forman, avoiding her annoyed scoffs, and takes a place on the sofa in the common area.

It's nearly impossible to bump into someone – not only because it's eleven pm, but also because except from him and Skye, there's only doctor Banner in the tower, and he's not likely to leave his lab soon. The rest of the team drifted away during last few days – Captain Rogers left to DC with Sanders and Pepper and Tony came back to the mansion for a while.

That's why Ward doesn't except anything out of usual to happen when he takes a seat and opens the file.

The first few pages are just basic information – most of them weren't redacted even in the first file he found with his level 7 clerance. The only new thing he finds there is that Daisy's – Skye's – mother was named Jiaying and that she was a doctor working with SHIELD in the late 80's – before giving birth to her daughter.

But then, he learns some things. There's a relation of what happened during Hydra's attack on the village, based on some civillians' memories, and, most importantly, Cal's fuzzy statement. There are mentions of an 084 being taken. But no one adresses the 084 as a child until much later.

There're far more information than Grant originally thought there would be. Most of it it's Coulson's own research and agent Avery's old raports, but Fury added a few papers on Skye that were found over the years. There's even a psych evaluation, but he doesn't want to read it.

He doesn't realise he's not alone in the room until he's about to close the file. He raises his head in time to see Skye dropping the glass full of water to the ground. For a few seconds they just stare at each other, ignoring the water on the floor – Grant already knows she saw the files, knows it from the way she looks at him – and then, he slowly puts the papers away.

“Skye,” he says cautiously, trying not to scare her. But she gives him one, sharp look that makes him feel guilty.

“So you have files on me,” she starts, slowly. Her voice trembles a little and that's how Ward knows she's barely stopping her rage. He can feel the earth quaking just a little bit. “You have files on me you just forgot to mention. You pretend you're actually starting to trust me only to get to know me better, so that you can have more info to your precious file. You know things about me that even I don't know and you – suprise! - forget to mention them.”

The look she gives him is clear now – she hates him. And even though he promised himself a long time ago he won't get attached, not after what happened to Coulson, it hurts.

“Skye,” he says, his voice calm, “let me explain.”

“Oh, I think everything's pretty clear, isn't it?” she clenches her fists and the trembling stops. Apparently, she really does have control.

“You don't know the half of i-,”

“I believed you!” her voice is lound in the empty room and it hits him, hard. Maybe it's because he never thought someone would really trust him again. Or maybe it's because of the look on her face. She stares at him with disgust and hate, but also something else. Something like pain. No one looked at him like that since the well.

Short sob escapes Skye's mouth.

“You know, I don't trust easily. But for some reason, I may have started- to trust you. And that's why I shouldn't trust people, ever. They only lie.”

Ward opens his mouth in an attempt to explain, but he realises it won't bring him any good. She's upset and knowing her, there's a lot more on her mind, things she would definitley say if he provoked her. That's why he doesn't speak. And okay, maybe he also doesn't speak because he's an asshole. Because a part of him knows it will be easier if they just don't talk. It will make it easier for him not to grow fond of her.

He lets her give him one more pained look and then turn around and leave without a word. He lets her go, ignoring the weird feeling on losing something growing inside him.

 

–

 

Clint is swimming – no, not swimming, floating. He's floating in the light blue see. He can't hear a single thing, like he's not only deaf to both of his ears, but also without his hearing aids on. He can't tell where he is or what the hell is going on.

And then, when he almost loses his hope about making any sense out of all this, he hears voices. There's one, at first. He can't accomodate it with anyone, but there's a feeling of hate attached to it, like a little memo.

“Tell me about the hospital fire,” the voice says. Clint sees pictures – the man with long hair, Loki, his cold, blue eyes, his cruel smile.

Then, the scene changes. He sees a glass cage, a picture that reminds him of an interrogation – Loki is on one side, and on the other side, there's… Natasha.

The name causes so many memories. Love is the first feeling that hits him, the strongest one. Then comes passion, worry, danger, all mixed in one.

“I'll make him kill you. Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear.”

He sees Natasha's face them. The fuzzy memory of watching the video tells him she was acting, but one memory of that moment tells him it's not act. He remebers how she told him she'd been compromised and he knows the feelings on her face right then – they're real.

And then there's her voice. The voice he loves.

“Clint,” she says, like an angel. He can almost see her face in the blue in front of him. “Clint, wake up. Clint, it's just a dream.”

_He wakes up._

When he opens his eyes, he finds his fist inches from Natasha's face. She's holding his wrist and her nailes are hurting his skin, but he decides to ignore it. The vision is blurry, but he realises he must've fallen asleep on the couch in their apartment. There's a blankett on his feet and he's covered in sweat. A dream?

More like a memory.

“Are you okay?” Natasha slowly releases the hold on his wrist and gently guides it on his knee. When he sits up, still not answering to the redhead's question, she takes a place next to him, putting her own hand on his.

“You know that I'm not,” he finally tells her, his voice clipped and silent. He knows she's looking at him with worry – it's the same look she gives him everyday since New York. He doesn't hate it, he hates the fact he deserves that look. He hates that he can't be 100% himself, not since Loki took over his mind.

And most of all, he hates how Natasha suffers because of it. She might brush it off, pretend she's doing fine, but he knows her well enough to know she's not as great as she pretends to be. He knows it hurts her when he doesn't hug her or touch her at all. It hurts him too, but he can't make himself do those things. In his mind, he's afraid he might actually bruise her, that Loki didn't really leave his head at all, he's still there, waiting for the right moment to attack.

“You can't keep beating yourself up because of all this, Clint,” her voice tired. She looks at him with a mix of pain and worry. “I know you and I know you blame yourself. But it wasn't your fault, none of it was. If you keep thinking like that, we might as well blame Fury for putting you in charge of the Tesseract,” she continues, gently brushing his hand with her thumb.

To Clint, all of this makes sense. But it doesn't make him feel any better.

“You shouldn't forget what happened. You should remember that, embrace it and learn how to live with it. Learn, how to use it to your own advantage,” this sounds like an advice Natasha would give. He looks her in the eyes and sees pain and worry like before, but now accompanied by love.

And maybe it's because of that steady glare she keeps on him, he realises she's right.

“He's not in your head anymore, Clint,” she adds, like she sees her words might actually be doing something to him. “There's no one there except from you.”

He smirks, remembering the old joke. “Sometimes even I'm not there,” he manages to quip, but is met by Natasha's confused look. “Since, you know, I do stupid shit,” he adds shyly.

“Oh,” she says, still kind of not understanding. But then it hits her. “Oh!”

The second 'oh' is much more cheerful and there's an actual smile on her face when she says it, maybe not big, but warm. It makes Clint smile as well, just a little bit. It's not much, but it's a start.

“Besides,” Natasha speaks first after a moment of silence, “we, ex-mind-controled assasins should stick together.”

Clint makes a grimace and she reads it perfectly.

“Too soon?” she asks.

Clint nodds. “Too soon,” but a small smile doesn't disappear from his face. He slowly links Natasha's fingers with his, their hands still placed on his knee. They fit perfectly together, like two pieces of the same puzzle. Just like their whole bodies, he realises.

“Natasha,” he whispers. His voice is full of something he can't quite identify, but it's lower than usual. “Thank you,” and then, before thinking it through, he adds: “I love you.”

He knows how those two words make her feel – they don't exchange them often, really, mostly because they both know it and they don't need some stupid words flying around. But everytime he says it to her, something changes in her – her whole body tenses for a second, like she's expecting a fight, but then it relaxes.

It happens this time, too. Natasha Romanoff, the deadly assasin, a person no one would suspect of having feelings, squeezes his hand. And then, she takes a deep breath.

“I love you, too,” hearing those three (well, four, actually) words coming from her lips is like Christmas when you're little. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's amazing, mind-blowing even. And even though they both knows about it, hearing it is different, always has been.

And then she raises her hand and slowly leans in. Clint feels his whole body waiting for the kiss, the kiss he was missing since this whole fiasco with Loki. When it happens, it's even better than he remembered. Natasha's lips are warm and loving and they match to his like they're meant for each other.

After the kiss, long and passionate, their forheads touch. For a few seconds, they just breathe, sitting next to each other, happy just because they're here.

And for the first time in months Clint Barton knows he's on a way to recovery. For the first time in months, he knows he's _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title's from twenty one pilots' heathens  
> \+ in case you didn't notice, there's a natward prequel to that story, you can check it out right [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7493670)


	8. we're like a thousand suns;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pre-mission skyeward, basically (+ clint barton, i'm always a sucker for clint barton.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after making a shitload of notes i've come to a decision the story will end after the 22nd chapter (and then, there'll be a sequel, just saying). also, i kindly remind you it's a slow burn fic :)))

The flight in the quinjet is not so bad, but it's mostly because of Clint's presence. Skye sees a change in him – he's different than the last time she saw him, chatty and _happier._ When she's hearing to Clint's story about “that one time Nat and I went to Hongkong to rescue some biochemist and it all went to shit”, she almost forgets about the guy she met weeks earlier, so clearly hunted by his own demons.

She also almost forgets about Ward, sitting in the second pilot seat, adding bits to the story – because obviously he “heard that story from Natasha and it wasn't like that”. So she doesn't really have a chance to forget about him – and when she looks at him, she remembers that night three days earlier. She remembers how betrayed she felt when she found him with those files. She remembers how she was annoying him, joking about their covers and then, half an hour later, she couldn't even look at him.

She realises she's lost in her thoughts, when she hears Ward asking: “What about Budapest?”

“Oh, man,” Clint looks at him like he's stupid. “Nat and I don't talk about Budapest, just like you and Nat don't talk about how you two met.”

Skye realises she never heard about how they met. She remembers Ward telling her once how he met Clint, when he was still a rookie and he was assigned to work with him and agent Romanoff, and she used to believed he met both Clint and Natasha for the first time then.

She would ask Ward about it, but she won't. She still can't really look at him without hate, or at least pain so obvious in her eyes. And for some reason, she doesn't want Clint to find out she's pissed. And she definitely doesn't want him to ask questions.

Not that Clint strikes her as a type who asks lots of questions.

“And– we're here,” Barton annouces before any of them has a chance to continue the conversation. “I'll be here, just like we planned. The car's waiting for you outside, there's a driver there,” he repeats exactly what Hill told them before they left and Skye catches herself nodding her head. Ward gives her a weird look, but she ignores him. She grabs a suitcase with clothes SHIELD prepared for her cover and leaves the quinjet without sparing Ward a single glance. He follows her in silence and lets her enter the car, when the SHIELD agent who poses as their driver opens the door for her and takes care of the suitcases.

The drive to the hotel is short and they mostly just hear to the radio and, occasionally, to the agent, who happens to be named Warden (Skye finds it hilarious, but her good humor disappears the second she looks at her partner/SO).

They arrange to meet him the next afternoon, so that he could take them to the ball and let him carry their suitcases inside. Ward checks in under their false names and chats with the receptionist as they wait for the bellboy to take their bags and show them to their room. With a bit of suprise and amusement Skye realises Ward is actually flirting with the poor girl, who, from time to time, gives her a very unimpressed glances and laughs and things her partner says – and Skye's sure they can't be _that_ funny.

That's probably the perk of being a wealthy businessman for the weekend.

Before they get to the room, it's eleven pm and all Skye dreams about is a hot shower and a warm bed. She's about to throw herself to the covers after they enter when she realises one, small thing – there's only one bed.

“I hope you'll enjoy your stay, Mr and Mrs Forman,” the bellboy says before leaving them be. Skye turns around the second the door closes.

“I'm taking the bed,” she says quickly, avoiding looking Ward in the eyes. “And I don't care you're not going to be able to sleep on the floor. I'm taking the bed and I'm sleeping there alone.”

To give him credit, Ward only knows. Apparently, he's not so happy about the situation either. As a peace offering, he tells Skye she can have the first shower. Knowing he does that not only because he's trying to be pleasant, but also because he has to have some sort of remorse, she forces herself to smile and tells him she takes awfully long under the shower, so he should go first. Suprisingly, he agrees, and within ten minutes, the bathroom is free for her.

She takes her time, thinking about the mission. Most of all, she's afraid she'll screw something up. She doesn't really care about impressing Ward, not since she saw him with that file, but she knows that if she'll mess it up, there's a very slight chance she'll be a part of SHIELD someday. And during her time in the Avengers Tower, she was actually looking forward to joining the organisation and doing some good, for real, this time.

She also thinks about Ward and those stupid files. She just got so pissed she has no idea what's in there. But no matter what it is, he still hid it from her.

She leaves the shower and dresses in the sexy nightgown Evelyn Forman would definitely wear. She's glad she told Ward he's sleeping on the floor, because as she looks at herself in the mirror, she's pretty sure _she_ wouldn't be able to resist herself.

To his credit, Ward is already ready to sleep on the floor – he made himself quite comfortable in the corner of the room, when the armchair stood when they entered the room. He doesn't really look at her, but when he sees her, he obviously can't resist before checking her out just once. She finds it quite amusing and forgets about her anger at him just for a few seconds.

And even when she's lying in bed, she kind of doesn't remember about it. She actually starts feeling pretty bad about kicking him out of the bad about an hour after they turn off the lights and because of that, she can't sleep. And even though she hears Ward's measured breathing, she's pretty sure he's awake, too.

“Ward?” she finally says, about an hour later. “Are you awake?”

There's a rumble from where he's lying and then he says “no” with hoarse voice.

“Do you want to sleep in bed?” she asks. She blames the lack of sleep for her confidence. She hears Ward shift under his covers. “Seriously. I feel bad about kicking you out. You can come here as long as you won't try anything.”

That's surely the lack of sleep. It's Ward. He wouldn't try anything even if he was lying in bed with naked prostitute, probably.

Skye hears him stand up and moves to make him place.

Funny how after he lays next to her, she falls asleep in the matter of seconds.

 

–

 

When Skye wakes up, she's alone in the bed. She's grateful for that, because she's pretty sure she woke up too close to Ward at some point during the night, but her sleepy self decided to ignore it.

She streches herself and leaves the bed. Only then she realises the bathroom is empty as well. She's just about to make an annoyed sigh when she notices the memo laying on the nightstand. Ward's writing is neat, of course. The memo says to meet him in the hotel's restaurant, so she chooses clothes from Evelyn's suitcase – a plain, salmon-pink dress, and does make-up with some overpriced make-up products she finds in the toilet bag. During her elevator ride she wonders if SHIELD has people, who choose outfits and products for missions and if so, how much do they earn.

The hotel restaurant looks expensive and is organized in the same style as the rest of the hotel. An elegant woman shows her her table and she takes the place across from Ward. He's wearing one of James' suits and he looks too attractive. He smiles at her and goes back to the newspaper he's reading.

“I ordered us breakfast,” he says, still focused on the paper. “I wasn't sure what you like, so I chose like, twelve different dishes.”

He sounds like he really wanted to be nice to her. He peeks at her from behind the newspaper and she feels like her anger melts, but just a little bit. When he sees the look she gives him, he puts the paper aside and takes a sip of his coffe.

“I also wasn't sure how you drink your coffe,” he adds. “But you look like a cream-and-no-sugar person to me, so I ordered that. If you don't like it, we can always-”

“It's perfect,” Skye interrupts him, because it really is. She knows he's just in character (because she's pretty sure Ward knows exactly how does she drink her coffe – sugar _and_ cream), but it's still really thoughtful of him. They actually look like a couple, still examining each other. What they should be, however, is a newly wed couple, and those doesn't really act like that.

She's just about to say something like “we should pretend all we want is to get to each other's pants”, but then the waiter arrives with their breakfast. And damn, Ward wasn't kidding – there's a little bit of everything on the platters the man leaves at the table.

She's so focused on the food she doesn't realise the waiter is actually her ex-boyfriend until she hears him exhaling loudly. “Skye?” he asks, confused.

She swears under her breath. That wasn't a part of the plan. Ward across from her look intrigued.

“Actually, it's not Skye, not anymore,” she tells the waiter, Mike, she recalls, looking at him with a smile she hope looks like a smile a woman from the upper class would give him. Ward kicks her in the leg under the table. “I decided to stick to my first name, Evelyn,” she smiles once again and this time it's more convinving.

“Well,” the waiter is obviously at a loss of words. “Wow, you look… wow.”

“But it's so good to see you!” she acts, because she remembers their break up, how he left her calling her a bitch and she threw tomatoes at his car later that night. “You look great, how are you?” she's pretty pleased with herself until she feels another kick under the table. “And this is my husband, James,” she reflects, still with a bright smile. “Do you think maybe you have a minute to take a break and sit with us, honey?”

Mike opens his mouth, but Ward – James – cuts him off. “I don't think it's a good idea, _baby,_ ” he possesively grabs her hand and links their fingers together. “I mean, this gentleman probably has to work, and we can enjoy our own company, don't you think?”

There's something in this little jealousy scene that makes her think there's actually a bit when he's Ward and not just James. But it can't be possible – as far as she knows, he's a pretty good actor. Or maybe he's just pissed this may blow their cover.

Mike seems to be, once again, at a loss of words. “I, um-,” he clears his throat. “Your right, sir, I do have a lot of work. I hope you enjoy your breakfast. And, um- it was nice meeting you, Skye. I mean, Evelyn,” and with that, he leaves their table way too fast.

Ward smiles at her from across the table and it looks like he's actually amused. “You're pretty good at it, you know,” he gives her a compliment, but she can't really enjoy it.

“I'm still mad at you.”

 

–

 

They take a walk after breakfast, visit an art gallery and then go to lunch. Ward is pleasant to her the entire time and they stick to easy subjects a wealthy married couple with impeccable manners would stick to – the city, the paintings, the food in the restaurant.

The go back to the hotel three hours before the gala starts and it's only so Skye could get ready. She knows there's a dress for her and a suit for him in the closet, but she didn't have a chance to look at it just yet – she only knows, from what agent Warden mentioned in the car, that the dress is black, with a lot of lace. It sounds like something she would wear, which makes her feel a little bit better about the entire situation.

In the room, he tells her to take the bathroom, since he can dress in the main room. She accepts it with a smile and takes the dress without really looking at it. She strips to her underwear – or rather, Evelyn's underwear, probably expensive and definitely revealing as much as it can – and she's about to take off her bra, when she sees it.

A huge spider under the shower. They should definitely file a complaint about it later. But instead of thinking about it just now, she screams. Like, loud.

And, before she even has a chance to think about the conseqences of her action, she unlocks the door and yells: “Ward!”.

He's inside two seconds later, a gun in his hand. The first thing Skye notices is that he's wearing only his boxer briefs. And damn, that body. She didn't realise before he's torso looks exactly like she would imagine Captain Rogers' torso would look.

She sobers in the matter of seconds.

“There's a spider,” she manages to say. He rolls his eyes just a little bit, and puts his gun away. After he kills the spider and is about to say something, he looks over his shoulder.

Skye can see the exact moment he realises she's wearing only her underwear. She can swear his eyes go darker, but before she has a chance to think about it, she closes the door in front of him, hitting him in the face in process.

“Thank you,” she only says sweetly.

She tries not to think about the situation when she turns around and enters the shower. She tries really hard, but it doesn't work. She tries not to think about it, when she styles her hair. She only manages to stop thinking about it when she sees the dress.

Because it's perfect. She loves it.

She's pretty sure Ward will love it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [skye's outfit of the day](http://cache3.asset-cache.net/gc/450148952-actress-chloe-bennet-of-marvels-agent-of-s-h-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=GkZZ8bf5zL1ZiijUmxa7QTbbNlBbBa4PPABlWL1llbNolBYBYrrUTyfqCY3ToKte7ih3MyVcjgpxn9anbjIJug%3D%3D) & [the evening dress](http://static.gofugyourself.com/uploads/2014/01/462350401.jpg)  
> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title's from tove lo's scars


	9. the world can be a nasty place;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skyeward teams up for skye's very first mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the (incredibly) late update. unfortunately, that's not gonna change anytime soon. i have one more chapter written but after that, there's just blank space. i'm gonna write it eventually, but for now school is taking all the power i have and all i want to do when i get home is just die (or sleep, like, a lot).

As to be expected, Ward really likes the dress. Or, to be more specific, he likes Skye in the dress. And if anyone asked, he wouldn't be able to deny it – she looks stunning, and, as far as he can tell, she's well aware of that.

She charms everyone before they even meet up with agent Warden, who drives them to the party. Skye charms him as well, even though there's a ring on his finger, and Ward tries very hard not to roll his eyes. Sure, she's great in her role, undercover work might actually be her thing, but being in character 24/7 might get a little annoying even for him.

They get to Brody's mansion in one piece and Warden opens the car door for them. Ward's the first one to leave the vechicle, and he extends his hand so that Skye could leave it as well. She accepts it with a smile he associates with her cover.

They give the man at the door their names and he welcomes them, wishing them to have a good night. Skye thanks him and brushes his shoulder as she weeks, a self-satisfied smile appearing on her face as she does so. Ward pretends he didn't see it – it's too early to pretend another jealousy scene.

The mansion is full of fairy lights, women wearing long dresses and men in expensive suits. Ward spies Brody near the bar and nodds to Skye. He takes her hand and they walk, arm to arm, to meet their host.

Jackson Brody is a man a little over thirty. His suit is dark blue and his short hair are fashionably cut. He's talking to the bartender and they're both laughing. Usually, men like Brody doesn't make people trust them. But he does.

“Mister Brody?” Ward jumps into character instantly. The man turns around and looks at them without recognition in his eyes. “I'm James Forman. This is my wife, Evelyn,” he introduces them and extends his hand so that Brody can shake it. He does it, as he realises who he's talking to.

“It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr Forman,” he says. Even his voice is pleasant. “I was really happy to hear you and your wife decided to accept my invitation this year.”

“Yes, we just got married two months ago and Evelyn here decided she wanted to show me around,” he laughs and Brody laughs with him. Skye cracks a smile, one of her charming ones.

“I've heard many great things about you, Mr Brody,” her voice is low and she sounds almost like a cougar, ready jump.

“Please, call me Jackson,” he smiles back at her and then looks at Ward. “Both of you.”

He notices something in the crowd.

“Will you please excuse me? I see my gardener, I hope I didn't piss him off by throwing this party,” he gives them a playful smile. “I hope to talk to you more tonight. Enjoy!”

And with that, he disappears. Skye looks around like she's looking for someone they should know.

“He seems nice,” she whispers to Ward ears, as she tries her best to pretend she's kissing her neck. To be fair, her lips brush his skin and he feels the goose bump on his arm.

“He does,” he whispers back. “But I'm afraid it's just because he wants us to think he's nice.”

Skye nodds. She looks like she forgot about her anger at him, but he's pretty sure she'll be back on giving him the cold shoulder after they leave the party. He though they had a nice day earlier, but then, when they got back to the hotel, she told him she's not done being mad at him. But then there was this whole thing with a spider and honestly, he has no idea how her mind works. Maybe after he saved her from that stupid thing, she forgave him?

Somehow, he doubts that.

He notices Skye looking around so more and he figures a plan which will make checking out the crowd a little bit less suspicious.

“Dance with me,” he says, loud enough so that it wouldn't be weird. There are a few couples on the dance floor and slow music in the background, which doesn't make the question suspicious.

Skye raises her brow at him.

“Come on, let's dance,” he urges, smiling at her with adoration (or so he hopes). She finally gives in and lets him take her to the dancefloor.

They discussed it a few times and decided that Ward will be the jealous person in the relationship, completely in love with her, while Skye will be the one not really taking the entire marriage institution seriously.

“Two by the door, three on the entrance to the house,” Ward reports, as they twist and turn. Thankfully, the music is faster now, so their piruets are not as suspious as they should be.

“Mmm, I say they don't stop us if we show them we just need five minutes of privacy,” she answers, closing the distance between them. She's a fenomenal dancer and Ward wonders if they teach girls how to dance in the orphanage run by nuns.

They probably do.

“I think you're right,” he agrees, taking a turn. They almost bump into the other pair that's not dacing quite as gracefully as them, but they're both pretty great on the dancefloor, so nothing like this happens.

“How about a little jealousy scene?” she asks silently, a small smirk already appearing on her face. “They'll probably think we'll talk and have hot make up sex.”

“Good idea,” he admits. “I was going to suggest just sex, but jealousy scene will give us more time.”

“Let's start now,” Skye decides, and before Ward has a chance to stop her (not that he would want to), she makes somehow a dramatic sigh. “Honey, I need a drink,” she says louder. An older woman by the table sends her a disapproving glare, but she ignores her and leaves her partner on the dancefloor.

Ward's not sure what to do with himself when another woman approaches him. She's tanned and her long, silver dress is really revealing. She also looks like he caught her eye. Her red hair are loose and there's a temting smile on her red coloured lips.

“It looks like your wife can't appreciate the man she has. Care to dance some more?” she asks and moves closer to him.

“Sure,” he stammers. Her long hands find her way on his back and her face is definitely too close to his.

“I'm Lorelei Banks,” she almost purrs into his ear. She smells of roses and jasmine and her fragnance is way to hard, practically hurting his sense of smell. “You know, the girl from rich family. And now I'm starting my own business.”

There's a blurry memory in his head of Maria mentioning Jaden Banks, the owner of at least ten hotels in California. It looks like Lorelei is the next Paris Hilton.

He forces himself to sound interested. “Oh really?”

“I'm designing my own clothing line,” she confesses and giggles. “But shh, no one's supposed to know about it just yet.”

It's really extraordinary for someone to become a giggly teenager in a matter of seconds, so he _accidentaly_ moves his hand lower on her hip to check how she'll react. He sees her smile with passion.

“This song's pretty nice,” Ward says. The truth is, he hates it. But he needs to keep small talk to give Skye some time to carry her plan out. He does a little turn so that he can see the bar. Skye's talking to some tall guy and she's already laughing and touching his arm like they're the best of friends.

“I agree,” Lorelei mutters, oblivious to her partner focusing on something else.

When Skye makes her move and almost completely closes the distance between her and the stranger, he decides it's time for James to intervene.

“Excuse me for just one minute,” he moves back from Lorelei and goes to the bar, completely ignoring the other woman's hurt.

“Evelyn,” he says when he's just a few steps away from her. It's loud and Skye moves back from the stranger, suprised. It takes exactly two seconds for a guilty look to appear on her face. But she changes her expression and casually takes a sip of her winde.

“Honey,” she starts, smiling again, “what's on your mind?”

Ward can't help but notice the older woman observing them. But not only her – two of the guards are staring at them with mild interest.

“What's on my mind?” he hisses silently and grabs her hand – but not too firmly. “I see you confused that man over here with someone. That someone being me.”

“Oh, don't be such a prude,” she laughs and takes another sip, ignoring his grip on her hand. “I know you slept with at least one of my bridesmaids during our wedding.”

“Well,” he makes it sound like he's really angry, “I was marrying you, so there's a chance I was very drunk.”

The older woman exhales loudly, probably forgetting she shouldn't be so invested in their fight.

“How about,” Skye's voice grows more annoyed, “we discuss it somehwere else? More in private,” she turns to the man sitting next to her. “Excuse us.”

They get past the guards without any problems and go upstairs, still in character. They only break it when they're sure no one's around.

“That was good,” she playfully smacks him in the chest, “I never though a Robot could be such a great actor.”

Ward rolls his eyes, hearing the nickname she gave him. It's more than annoying, so he decides to ignore her. “The computer room is this way. Let's get this over with.”

Skye nods, but in the corner of his eye he notices she looks a little bit nervous.

“It's going to be fine,” he reassures her.

“You don't need to worry about me,” she scoffs, and he retires the subject.

They find the room without much trouble. Ward goes inside first, knocks out two guards and ties them up before gesturing for her to enter. She takes place behind the computer and fishes a flashdrive from the case attached to her thigh under the dress. Ward stands outside the door, ready to fight anyone on their way.

He hears Skye typing from outside, but he's mostly focused on the corridor. They don't have anyone controling the cameras, which is kind of a risk, especially since it's Skye's first mission, but he's not really worried – he memorized plans of the house and he knows every exit – including the one down the stairs. They should be ready to leave as soon as Skye's finished.

She leaves the room a few seconds later, attaching the flash drive back to the case. She nodds but then catches Ward by his suit jacket.

“This has to look convincing,” she states, and starts messing with his hair. He has to admit she's right, so he messes his pants up too, just in case.

She's close with her fingers in his hair, so close he can smell her perfume – daisies and white tea, fresh and sweet at the same time. She stops for a moment and then slowly pulls her hands out of his hair. She destroyes her wave just a little bit, too, and they're just about to leave when Ward hears steps on the stairs they were supposed to take and swears under his breath.

It's a patrol, because the steps are slow and he can hear talking, yet it still will be hard to explain. There are two ways out of this.

“Go back to the party,” he says to Skye. She doesn't question him, only runs on her high heels. She disappears on the other stairs the minute three guards appear on the floor.

“Sir, what are you doing here?” one of the guards says. Ward can see they're armed. Luckily, they're not the guards from the ballroom.

“Yeah, I was just…,” he pretends to trip and in a moment, attacks the first guard. He's down before the other two realise what's going on. He takes a comm from one of them and crushes it before hitting the guard on the jaw. He falls down, uncounsious, but before Ward turns around, somebody's fist lands on his face. He can feel blood on his lips and curses under his breath. The last one is not so easy to take out, but he manages to do it with just a little problem.

He takes some time to tie them up and close in a room, before heading to the bathroom. His mouth doesn't looks so bad, but his shirt is messed up a little bit and he has bloody chuckles, which means he can't exactly go back to the party.

Hoping Skye managed to talk to Brody and explain why they're leaving so early, he takes the stairs and sends two text – first to Warden, to prepare the car, the second one to Skye, to get outside.

He jumps to the car and waits for their driver to open them for Skye. She steps inside and Ward sees she was crying – which means her act was a dirty game. But when she smiles at him, just slightly, he decides it worked.

“I told him we had a terrible fight and we have to sort things out at home,” she explains, relaxing on the leather seats. “He wished us luck and said he hopes we'll meet soon. I-” she stops when she sees the blood on his mouth. “Are you bleeding? Shit, Ward.”

She wants to examine his mout, see if everything's fine, but Ward, being the asshole he is, turns his face from her. “You don't have to worry about me,” he mirrors her words from before, just to see her expression.

She looks almost guilty.

They arrive to the jet in silence, deciding to skip the night in hotel (Warden takes the very long way to make sure no one's following them).

Clint's waiting for them. He even quips about Ward's bloody face. Everyone laughs, but Ward doubts Skye's laugh's not fake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title from "kill 'em with kidness" by selena gomez


	10. it was just like a movie;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the aftermath of the mission and ward's shocking confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm writing the next chapter and there's some more confessions to be made by ward, just saying (also, we're almost halfway through the fic, how exciting is that!).

They wait in the conference room after they come back from the mission – Skye, Ward and Clint. They have some time to clean up and change (and Skye learns Clint and Natasha actually have clothes and running water on their floor) but they're all upstairs quickly, ready for a short debrief. Ward's lower lip is a little bit swollen, but there's no sign of blood on him, since he changed into black t-shirt and jeans.

Skye is not usually patient, that's why she starts turning on her chair like a little kid. She does that until she hears Ward snort. She turns around to say something and she realises Clint, the older person in the room, is doodling on the SHIELD issued file with a purple pencil he found on the table. He smiles at her when he notices she's looking and Ward rolls his eyes.

But then he sits straight on his chair and agent Hill enters the room, followed by sleepy Fury and even more sleepy agent Sanders. Fury's eye patch is crooked and agent Sanders has a brown stain on his shirt. Only Hill looks awake, and she's smiling.

“Good to have you back,” she says, her voice loud and clear. Clint stops doodling. In the corner of her eye she can see a drawing of a man and a woman wearing identical t-shirts with an arrow on them.

“I assume the mission was a succes?” Fury asks, not bothering to look at any of them. Instead, he starts playing with a black object. It looks like some sort of badge, but Skye doesn't pay much attention to it.

“Yes, sir,” Ward answers, his professional mode kicking in.

“Good. I expect your raport on my desk on Monday, agent,” Hill says. “Yours to, miss Johnson. Some basic things, I'm sure agent Ward will be happy to show you all the paperwork.”

Skye nodds and in her head, she imagines little cartoon Ward dropping tons of paper on her with a mischevious grin. She can't really see the real Ward with a mischevious grin, so the cartoon version has to be enough.

“The other thing we wanted to adress,” Hill starts, looking at director Fury.

“Yes, from what we gathered, we're guite happy with your… performance, miss Johnson,” he says, staring at her with his one eye. Skye wants to say something about crooked eye patch, but decides it might be dangerous. Instead, she looks the director in his other eye. “We also realised it wouldn't be wise to send you to missions _and_ let you work on the case when you're no one but a… consultant.”

“He means,” Hill pipes up, seeing the growing look of worry on Skye's face, “welcome to SHIELD, agent Johnson.”

Fury rolls his eye and puts the black object on the table in front of Skye. She slowly takes it, feeling every single eye in the room on her. She opens the badge and exhales loudly. It is an actual SHIELD badge, a one with her name and a photograph on it. It says _field agent_ and underneath it, _communications._ There's a big _Level 1_ under her name (it says Daisy Johnson aka Skye instead of just Daisy Johnson, and it makes her feel like she's accepted), but she knows it's a start. Of something big.

“We'll, uh, let you enjoy it,” Hill looks uncomfortable, as she looks at the three of them. “I'll see you soon, _agent_ Johnson. I hear Stark's throwing a party for you.”

“Congratulations, Skye, you made it,” Fury says before he leaves after his second in command.

Sanders salutes her. “I guess that means we'll be seeing each other more now, huh? Looking forward to it, agent.”

He then makes some lame excuse about getting zero sleep in like, a week, and Stark leaving him the bed on the guest floor and leaves, yawning as he does so.

Clint's next. He gives her a warm hug and she feels like she's hugging a member of her family – which is really weird, since she doesn't know Clint at all and he's like the guy she met just yesterday. But she already likes him and the stories he tells, and he seems like a great guy.

“Congratulations, kid,” he supplies, giving her a warm smile. “I bet Stark _is_ going to throw you a party.”

He walks away, leaving the conference room door open. Ward finally stands up from his chair and gives her something that looks like…

“Is that a smile?” she asks. She can't really control her emotions after everything that happened. It's not like she dreamed about becoming a part of SHIELD. It's more like, she wanted to belong somewhere her whole life. And now she feels like she finally does.

“Yes, it it,” Ward answers, to her suprise. “You deserved it. You did great today.”

And then he does the most unexpected thing. He hugs her. Skye stands still for a second, not sure what she should do, but then her brain kicks in and she hugs him back. It's awkward, but there's something really nice about it and she doesn't really want it to end.

But it does. Like every good thing in her life.

(Hopefully, not this one.)

Ward turns to leave, but Skye stops him when he's in the doorway. He turns around, waiting.

“I'm not mad at you,” she finally says. “I mean, I am, but I'm not gonna hold it against you. You had your reasons, you're not gonna tell me what they were, I get it. Just… next time, I would really appreciate the truth.”

Ward nodds once before leaving the room and leaving her alone. And although the walls are made of glass and both Ward and Clint can see her, it doesn't stop Skye from opening her badge one more time and grinning like an idiot.

 

–

 

Turns out, Tony Stark really knows how to throw a party.

Well, Ward already did know that, but it's amazing to see how startled Skye is when she arrives to the common area the next evening and there's about two dozen people when she turns the lights on. But looking at her face, he figures she did know something was not right since the very beginning – otherwise, why would she have to turn on the lights by herself.

But she seems really suprised by all of those people, congratulating her and just smiling at her. He sees Stark waving his hands and Rhodey by his side, smiling at Skye and probably adding bits to the story Tony already started telling.

It takes only a few minutes for all of them to find their places. Natasha covers the bar, per usual, and she gives Clint one of his favourite drinks. Ward notices they way they're smiling at each other, like everything's better than it was just a few days ago. Nat's obviously flirting, and the archer laughs at something she said.

So, Clint is getting better. Finally.

Ward sees Sanders is also there, talking to two older men. Steve's chatting with deputy director Hill, who looks suprisingly good in a black dress. A few agents he recognizes from the tower sit by the table laughing. There's only one woman there – a nurse from the hospital wing. He knows her only because of his sparings with Nat in the early days of the Avengers, when he had to stop by for some band-aids for them.

Even doctor Banner's there, awkwardly standing in the middle of the room, until Pepper approaches him and hands him a drink – or, more likely, a coke – and starts a conversation with him. That leaves Grant by himself, but he doesn't really mind. He decides getting some booze would be a great idea, but as a good friend, he doesn't want to interrupt Clint and Natasha, so obviously busy in their own world.

As much fun as it would be to just stand there and watch them, he knows it's kind of creepy. So he moves, and walks over to where's Sanders. He's now talking with only one man. He thinks he might've seen him working for FedEx, but he's not really sure.

“I'm not like, a member of the Avengers, but I'm assigned to work with them if anything happens,” Tom explains, and Ward rolls his eyes. Of course he would play that card. Sanders is really proud of his affiliation to the Avengers, even though his work is basically cleaning their mess and, ocassionally, completing the files of the missions.

“That's impressive, young man,” the guy tells him, but his face looks like he doesn't believe in all this shit Sanders is feeding him with.

Ward decides joining the conversation would probably make Tom hate him, so instead, he takes a turn and stops at the bar. Natasha ignores him, because she's Natasha and he's Grant, but Clint says something, kisses her cheek and then leaves, patting Ward's shoulder.

“What can I get you, agent?” Nat asks in a flirty voice. He holds the urge to rolls his eyes.

“I'd like my usual, thank you,” he answer without missing a beat. The redhead only sends him a knowing smile, that signalises there's definitely going to be a talk now, and kneels under to bar to get some ice from the refridgiator.

When there's a glass of whiskey in front of him, Natasha leans against the bar.

“So…,” she starts slowly, almost cautiously, “how's it going between you and the rookie?”

Ward pretends it's just a standard question, mostly because he knows Natasha meant something completely different than just the progress of the training and the fact that Skye just became a SHIELD agent.

“I think she's doing great,” he answers, hoping Nat will just drop it. But of course, it's Nat. She never starts a subject without every intention of finishing it the way she wants to.

“You know that's not what I mean,” she leans closer to him, now looking him directly in the eyes. He sighs, defeated.

“What do you mean, then, Natasha?” he rarely talks to her by the full name she chose herself, he's so used to using Nat. After all, that's how she first introduced herself to him all those years ago, when everything was just so much different.

“Grant.”

There's a seriousness in her voice.

“You remember how I first tried to find you a girlfriend? Well, I could see you felt completely nothing for every single one of those girls, even though some of them were fine even for me,” Ward gives her an unimpressed glance. “Yes, anyway, I've seen how you act around women. And how you act around _Skye_ ” she whispers the last word, but there's no one nearby anyway.

“Natasha,” Ward says, his voice somehow lower than usually.

“Just admit it,” she's still whispering, and her voice is more urgent now. She looks at someone behind her and he smile fades a little bit. Ward turns around as well and sees Skye talking to Sanders. Or rather – flirting with her. He's touching her forarm in a rather intimate manner, and they're both laughing, standing close to one another.

Natasha doesn't even seem suprised when Ward turns around, slightly sad.

“See!” she exclaims. “You have to act, or else Saunders is going to kiss her on your watch.”

Ward rolls his eyes, but he knows Nat is right.

“I don't… _like_ her that way, okay?” he sighs, not even believing in his own words.

“Whatever you say,” her expression tells Ward exactly what she thinks about the matter. She thinks he's in denial. And maybe he is.

“I'm not,” he presses, this time a little bit louder. The knowing smirk on his friend's face tells him his behaviour is even more pathetic than it was before.

“Sure.”

Finally, he can't stand it, the redhead's assumptions, all of this incertainity.

“Fine, maybe I do have feelings for her!” he hisses, so silently only Natasha can hear him, and leaves.

 

–

 

Skye comes back to her room that night, alcohol and excitement still bubbling inside her. The new badge is laying on the cabinet by the entrance, next to her phone. She left her place with an intention to grab a glass of something, maybe hang out around the tower with the Avengers. She wasn't expecting a party, leave alone all those people.

She also wasn't expecting to see Ward there, actually kind to her. The didn't really speak during the party, but he smiled at her everytime she found him in the room. Which was quite often.

That is, until she started flirting with Sanders. She didn't actually have anything in mind when she started talking to him, maybe she just wanted to check if he's attractive to her.

Well, he is attractive. But she's totally _not_ into him.

Her apartment is dark and when she turns on the lights, she realises someone was there. She left her living room in a mess, but now the pillows are on the sofa and there's a file on the coffe table. She aproaches it slowly, unsure of how to react.

But then she takes it and sees a post-it note on the cover.

“ _Agent Coulson was my mentor,_ ” she reads silently out loud, not fully understandig just yet. “ _He spent half of his life tracking your case. That's why I didn't want you to see it. But I do now. I hope it will give you some closure._ Signed, GW.”

 

(There's no psych evalution in those files – Ward threw it in the bin, without reading it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title from adele's when we were young


	11. i am not a robot;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skyeward special!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just realised it's been exactly a year since i started posting this story (i know i suck at that tbh). so yay, happy birthday, codename: quake!

“You're taking me to the HQ?” Skye asks for what seems like the hundreth time during their ride. The black, unmarked car picked her and Ward up from the tower early in the morning with Clint on the passanger's seat and Sanders behind the wheel.

Grant notices how he looks at Skye in the side-view mirror every now and then, but decides to ignore it, just like he ignores the weird feeling that stayed in his chest since the party Tony threw for Skye a few days ago, the very same party he saw her flirting with Sanders.

And Grant Ward is dealing with this weird feeling in an only way he knows – with being extra mean to both Skye and Tom. As much as Tom doesn't really mind, since they don't see each other that often, he knows it hurts Skye when he's so cold to her during the trainings. He realises she'll blow up and yell at him soon, and maybe he's kind of waiting for that, because he really wants to know what's going on between her and Sanders.

“Are you sure you're not taking me to some super-secret research facility?” Skye asks a different question this time, catching him completely off guard.

“What?” Clint asks confused from the passanger's seat, and turns around with a puzzled look on his face. Ward only groans.

“Skye,” he says in a low voice.

“Well, I'm sorry,” she snaps at him, “but the last time you kidnapped me and put me on a plane and then we took a trip across the States. Don't be suprised I actually don't feel really good about taking this suprise roadtrip.”

“Actually, the last time we were on a mission,” Clint notices.

“Yes, but then I knew exactly where we were going and for how long!” she raises her hands in protest and accidently nudges Ward with her elbow. But instead of saying she should be more careful, he snorts.

“What's so funny, agent Ward?” she says, poison dripping in her tone. So she actually is hurt by his behaviour.

“Nothing,” he says, back to his all-business behaviour. He can see that annoyes her, as she just groans and turns her head from him so she can look out of the window. They're out of traffic now, on their way to the HQ.

It's actually a really nice day, and if it wasn't because of that trip, Ward would probably give Skye the afternoon off so that he could train outside. But SHIELD always came first. He knew, the second Fury's name popped up on his screen, that they would be visiting the HQ today. Every new agent had to take a tour and do some paperwork while there. Plus, Fury visited the Avengers Tower way too often for a director of SHIELD. Ward knows he'll be back to DC soon, and he suspects he will have to take Skye there soon.

“Hey, Nat and I are taking you to lunch later,” Clint says, when the silence in the car becomes unbearable. He pokes his head in-between fron seats. “There's this new pizzeria that I've been dying to visit. I hear they have great _Pepperoni._ ”

“Fine by me,” Ward answers almost immidiately. “Skye?”

She manages to show more enthusiasm now, probably because it's Clint who's asking, and it looks like the two of them actually like each other. “Sure, why not.”

Before anyone has a chance to add something, Sanders speaks up. “We're here,” he annouces, and pulls up by the entrance to show his ID.

“This is where the fun begins,” Clint winks at her and sits straigt.

“Agents Sanders, Barton, Ward and Johnson,” Tom says to the guard. The man in his fifties check something on his computer.

“May I see your ID's?” he asks. Sanders pulls his badge out of his suit jacket and motions to everyone to do the same thing. Skye notices Clint's badge is in terrible shape as she hands hers to him, while Ward's in impeccable condition.

The man takes them, checks something again, scans the badges and hands them back to Sanders.

“We're good,” he yells to someone. A few seconds later the gate slowly starts opening. “Welcome to the HQ.”

 

–

 

When they get back to the Tower later that day, all Skye really needs is a drink. Clint and Natasha follow them to the building but leave on their own floor and tell them goodnight, although it's only like, eight thirty. Skye has no idea what she's going to do for the rest of the evening and contemplates bing-watching the last season of _Grey's Anatomy_ , but then Ward stops her before she clicks the button to her own floor.

“Join me for a drink?” he asks. She's kind of confused at first but then agrees and nodds. He gives her one of those rare, small smiles and picks the top floor.

Jarvis switches they lights on when they arrive.

“Mister Stark and Miss Potts went back to the mansion, while Doctor Banner is in the lab. I do not know where Captain Rogers is, but he left the tower aproximately two hours ago,” the AI informs them as the enter the lounge.

“Thanks, J,” Skye says in the general directon of the ceilling.

“You are welcome, Agent Johnson. Shall I leave you by yourselves now?” he asks then, with his usual politeness and this amazing british accent Skye really, really likes. She's also kind of shocked by the question, and shots Ward a questioning look.

It's him who finally says, “Yes, please.”

Skye sits on the bar stool, while Ward goes behind the bar.

“What can I get you?” he asks, smile creeping on his lips. She feels he's different, now that they're alone. There's nothing left from his previous coldness and she wonders it's maybe because of the file he left her on the night of the party. But nothing really happened since that night – she read it and didn't mention it to him at all.

“Um-,” she comes back to his question and considers her options. She would go with wine, but she's more tequilla girl than anything. But she doubts Tony Stark has a secret stash of tequilla somewhere in the tower. “Whatever you're drinking,” she blurts out without even thinking it through. But Ward only smiles again, which starts creeping her out a little bit, and fills two glasses with ice. He takes a bottle of fine whiskey from under the bar.

“I wouldn't really peg you as a whiskey guy,” she states when he hands her the glass and takes a sip from his own.

“Oh really?” he asks. Skye remembers he and Clint had like, three beers to the pizza. She wonders if it's easy to get Grant Ward drunk.

“Yeah, I would say vodka, or maybe Long Island Ice Tea, but whiskey?” she takes a sip of the alcohol. It's a fine kind, one she could never afford. She didn't really drink much of whiskey in her life, but she kind of enjoys it now.

“Vodka is totally Natasha's drink. Clint's more into beer, but they both really like tequilla. Plus, you can say Barton's guilty pleasure are Comspolitans.”

Skye almost chokes. She can't really imagine the muscular archer (who has a great sense of humor lately) drinking the pink drinks her bitchy boss from the very first job she got loves so much.

“But you can say whiskey is kind of a special drink for me and Nat,” he adds, and Skye suddeny feels like she needs more alcohol. She finishes her drink and puts the glass on the counter. Ward gives her a questioning look but pours her more without even asking.

“You and Natasha seem awfully close,” whiskey disappears in a matter of seconds, leaving only the burning in her throat. But she finds the burning kind of nice at the moment, because it gives her something else to focus on.

“We've been friends for a while now,” he states, as he pours another drink for both him and Skye. He pretends not to notice her emotionless expression.

“What's the story behind that?” she can't really help asking. She expects Ward to shut her out or something, but, to her suprise, he only sighs.

“There's no story behind that. We're just both screwed up. But I got out pretty early, for her it was a long, long time, just like for Clint. That's why they're so good together – they practially share the same scars.”

It would probably make her think if it wasn't for the alcohol. Instead, she raises an eyebrow.

“How are you screwed up? I googled your name because I knew I recognized it from somewhere. You're brother is running for senator.” There's like milion other things she wants to say, a few really unkind things, but she manages to shut her mouth.

Ward only gives her a sad look. It doesn't suit him, but it looks like he's been wearing that face for longer than just a few minutes over his entire life.

“My father liked to… beat me up. Me and my older brother. And since Thomas and Rosie, my younger siblings, were under protection of our mother, Christian had me hurt Thomas,” he looks down and for a second Skye thinks he might be crying. But then he raises his head again. “Thomas knew it wasn't my fault, but I hated myself. And because of me, he- Anyway, they got out, he and Rosie. Or grandmother took them in.”

“What about you?” she asks, taking yet another sip of her new drink. Ward is drinking as well. “Didn't she take you in?”

“I, uh,” he looks at her, distracted, sadness still present in his eyes, “I did a stupid thing back then, so I was dealing with consequences. But we were in touch.”

“What kind of thing?” she presses. She probably wouldn't do that if she was sober. She's not drunk, at least not yet.

“That's story for another time, I'm afraid,” he answers, pouring himself yet another drink. “What about you? I assume you didn't have the best childhood as well?”

“And by assume you mean you've read my files?” she asks. He looks kind of concerned, like he's afraid she'll get mad at him. She almost laughs. “It's okay, I'm over that. It was nice what you did. I never really thanked you for that.”

He gives her a self-satisfied smirk that looks really good on him, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

He's not that good of a liar, or maybe it's just her that has him all figured out – either way, she doesn't press the matter any further.

“Whatever you say, Tin-Man,” she smirks. She's lost count on how many drinks she had. Ward had approximately the same number as her, but he doesn't seem to be affected by the alcohol – he's still leaning nonchanatly behind the bar, with a new bottle of liquor ready to be opened. Skye wonders if they're going to have a field day with Stark about drinking his booze, but then decides it's his fault he didn't hide it any better.

“So,” Ward starts after a moment of silence. Skye is playing with her now empty glass, considering if she's up for another drink.

“So,” she repeats, not looking at him, “you wanna know how screwed up I am?”

He looks like he's taking this question seriously. “Well, if you're as screwed up as all of us, except maybe Stark, I'm pretty sure you're a good fit here.”

She snorts. “Okay, so, I don't remember my father. Like, at all. I know some stuff about him, I know he went totally nuts after losing my mother, but I don't… _remember_ him, you know? Sometimes I wish I could, if only to know what I lost. My latest memory comes from when I was six and they left me at St. Agens', that female agent and her partner.”

“She was my menthor's ex,” Ward says abstentmindly. Skye notices he's not looking at her just like she's not looking at him. “Her name was Lind Avery.”

“And she was killed by my father,” the silence in the room is suddenly heavy. Skye feels, knows it's her fault, but she also doesn't really care at this point. “I got over it. I know he's a monster.”

“Maybe he's not,” Ward says and she knows it's only to make her feel better. And it works. “He wasn't. It's just, he lost his wife and his daughter, figured he had nothing else to live for.”

Skye thinks it's kind of hot, and that Ward in general is really hot, and totally her type. She doesn't know when, but she moves closer to him. The alcohol is totally responsible for her actions. At this point she's almost sure she's drunk.

But then she looks Ward in the eyes and realises he's looking into hers, and they're so close she can almost feel him breathing.

And then he breaks the eye contact and it's over.

“I should go,” she stammers, maybe because she's feeling totally embarassed of what she wants. She tries to stand up but she trips and it's only because of Ward's strong hands she doesn't fall.

“I'll walk you to your room,” he offers. Skye wonders how it's possible he had so much whiskey and is not even wasted, but doesn't ask. Instead, she takes an arm he's offering her, and he leads her to the elevator.

“Thank you, for tonight,” she says when they're riding to her floor. “And today. Here I was, thinking you hate me.”

“Come on, Skye,” he says. Sadness is back in his eyes, she realises. “I could never hate you.”

She can almost feel butterflies in her belly, but convinces herself those are just the results of drinking so much. And then the elevator stops at her floor and he slowly leads her inside.

“I think you can have a day off tomorrow. But we're back on daily trainings on Wendesday.”

She only nodds. He walks her to her bedroom where she all but throws herself on the bed, still fully clothed.

“Goodnight,” he whispers softly and turns around to leave.

“Grant,” she says, her voice sleepy. She's not sure it's not a dream, at this point. “You are a good man.”

 

(When he turns around, she's already alseep.

“No, I'm not,” he whispers to himself and closes the door.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title from i am not a robot by marina & the diamonds (see what i did there!)


	12. black hole in my mind;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's when skye and ward finally learn how to work together, that a mission goes sideways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again! i hope you don't hate me for the huge dealy. happy new year guys! (also, i know the chapter is not the best, and it's kind of a filler, but it's been a while since i actually wrote skyeward, and i feel like a lot has changed when it comes to my writing. we'll see what happens next.)

Ward's not entirely sure Skye remembers that night later – and it's not like he can just ask her. So they don't adress the events, setteling into a routine. They talk about missions and not-important stuff, like food preferences (turns out, they're both really into pumpkin pancakes).

Fury gives them a couple of missions – they're usually pretty easy, Level 1 operations, but neither Skye or Ward really mind. They learn how to work together, which is not so easy at first – they both want to be in control.

It's their seventh mission, when everything goes to shit. It's a simple op, really – get in and out. Skye is after what feels like countless hours of her powers training with Steve and Natasha and Ward's checked the plans at least eleven times to make sure they won't meet anyone.

It's not a major enemy – just some mafioso-wannabe playing with alien tech. There's no need to bring an entire team if they know there's going to be about three people in the building, all of them probably drinking. They treat it seriously, but not _too seriously._ Nothing can go wrong, right?

Turns out, someone tips them off and at some point, they get circled by about twenty men, each of them pointing their gun at Skye and Ward. He's sure he has like, four bullets left, and Skye can barely stand on her right ankle, gripping his arm to stay upright. They're not in position to call for back up, and it will be a while till their handler for the mission ( _fucking_ Sitwell) realises something's not right.

“Can you fight?” Ward whispers, carefully eyeing men in front of him. All in black kevlar, they kind of look like they know what they're doing. Maybe the enemy is not as harmless as they once fought.

“I think I sprained my ankle,” Skye answers, equally quiet, “but I'm good. I heal faster, remember?”

He turns his head slightly to see her expression, and she sends him a somewhat wicked smirk. He doesn't smile back, instead setteling for a simple, barealy visible nod.

“Let's do this, then,” he says, this time louder. He's on the ground in an instant. Skye's left standing, but she sends a wave of her power towards the bullets and they all hit an invisible wall.

He doesn't waste his time to stare at the suprised faces of their opponents, instead moving closer to them and kicking a pair of legs. They don't suspect anything, so they're suddenly on the ground like a domino, but pissed.

It's a mess of fists and knees after that. He hears some screams and he knows Skye's using her abilities to get to him, yet he's to invested in fighting his own few enemies to look at her, to make sure she's okay.

He straightens when it's over, and looks at the bodies scattered on the floor. They're not dead, at least not all of them, but there's blood in some places and they are all unconcious. He quickly checks if there's no one else, and then turns around.

Skye's dealing with her last opponent, and she's not using her powers. She kicks him right on the face, making him loose conciousnes. He recognizes Natasha's infamous roundhouse kick and frowns, sure _he_ didn't show her that.

She kicks the guy on the stomach, just to make sure he's not going to grab her ankle, and then turns around to Ward, already smiling, like she's really proud of herself.

He sees the exact moment her expression changes. She raises her hand. “Ward, look ou–”

He never hears the end of her sentance – he feels something shifting in the air, and then there's just darkness, devouring him.

 

–

 

Skye stays in the hospital wing for full four hours (how long does it take to wake up after you get hit by a pipe? She has no idea), feeling nervous with each second. The nurse that checks on Ward, a short, rosy-cheeked girl named Lily, tells her there's nothing to worry about, but Skye still taps her foot impatiently, staring at her unconcious SO. He looks different in his sleep, still handsome and dangerous, but more peaceful. She knows he didn't have it easy in life (from the bits she gathered, and from the part he told her himself all those weeks ago, during an impromtu drink, when she got tipsy, but forgot nothing), and she thinks it's not his thing to lower his guard, or simply relax.

He's probably alert even in his sleep. She wonders if he's like that during dates. Or if he has a girlfriend (he probably doesn't, she knows for a few months now and she never saw him talking to anyone or leaving the base at stranger hours).

And then she wonders why on earth is she thinking about things like that. She blames it on the stress, and on the mission going sideways. But it still makes her so shocked to realise she's even thinking about Ward being single, she doesn't notice Clint checking on his friend.

“Shit, kid,” he says, the second he sees her, “you've been here all that time?”

(The last time Clint visited the hospital wing was almost three hours ago. She was stationed by Ward's bed then, too, haven't moved since he left, it fact.)

“Yup,” she answers, popping the 'p'. She tries to look calm and collected, but notices the slight concern in Clint's eyes as he looks at her.

“Come on, let me make you something to eat,” the older man encourages, placing his strong hand on her shoulder, “you must be starving.”

She doesn't know why she says yes, but suddenly she's seated behind the counter with a cup of tea, watching Clint from behind as he's making pancakes.

“So, except from today's fiasco, how do you like being a SHIELD agent?” Clint asks her, flipping the pancake like a pro, not looking over his shoulder to look at her properly. She stares at his back for a few more seconds before answering.

“Fine, I guess,” her voice is unsure. She instantly remembers herself months ago, when she was still kind of lost and without a purpose. SHIELD helped her _not_ to be that person. But she has no idea who she is now. Sometimes it's hanging in between two worlds, two Skyes – the hactivist and the agent.

Clint serves her her first pancake, looking at her, frowning. She suspects there must be some sort of weird expression on her face. And he looks geniuenly concerned.

She feels like she can trust him – mostly because she put pieces together, and heard a little bit about New York, including the part when the archer is still recovering from the mind control thing. So, for the first time in what feels like forever, she decides to open up.

“Sometimes I don't feel like I belong,” she states. Clint's back tenses for a second, but when he turns around, his face is lacking any major emotions.

“Me too, let me tell you,” his voice is silent, but Skye has no doubts he's being honest with her. “You probably don't know how it happend I became a SHIELD agent, but it's not a pretty story. Involves a lot of dead bodies and bad decisions. And even now, after almost fifteen years, I still sometimes feel like I don't belong. Like the people, who graduated from the academy, who have those perfect lives they planned, I feel like they're better than me.”

There's bitterness in his voice. Skye feels like she can relate, although she never killed anyone in her life. But she made her fair share of bad decisions in life, especially before the _incident,_ as she's used to calling it now.

“I don't think they're better than you,” she finally manages to say, her voice unsure, but louder than before, “or me, for that matter.”

He gives her a small smile. “I get that a lot,” he explaines her, “from Fury, mostly. Coulson, our former handler, used to tell that to me and Nat all the time. We, ex-bad-examples, can by all means become better agents. We're aware of the real dangers in the world. You , for example, know how Rising Tide works, you're a great hacker. They may be harmless these days, but who knows what will hapen in five or ten years from now?”

Skye knows he's right. But it's still weird to think that some time ago, she was considered a SHIELD enemy – even if they didn't really bring her in because of that.

(They did, however, bring her in, because there might be madness and evil in her blood.)

“Okay, we both need to cheer up a little bit,” Clint annouces, straigtening from his curled up position leaning on the counter. He steals a bite of her semi-warm pancake and smiles, proud of himself. “Gotta make more of those.”

He's humming a song as he starts preparing food. It's amazing how quickly he came from nostalgic to cheerful. And Skye knows the song, and it sounds a bit different than what he's singing silently, so she can't help but smile a little bit.

She still remembers Ward being in the med bay, but somehow being with Clint calms her down, even if just a little bit.

“You know,” Barton pipes up, as he's flipping the pancake, “you should join me at the shooting range some time. Ward said you're getting better with the gun, and I wonder how would your skills manifest if you were to shoot a bow.”

 

–

 

Natasha almost sighs with relief when she sees Ward's eyes flutter, and then finally open. It's not like she was worried – okay, maybe just a little bit – but it's good to see him conscious.

“Finally, you idiot,” she says fondly.

“Auch,” he mutters, ignoring her completely.

He blinks a few times, and then looks around to take his surroundings. Natasha sees the exact moment he realises he's in the med bay. He grunts, the sound barely audiable, and drops his head back on the pillow, despite the fact it must hurt like a bitch.

“What happened?” he asks, not even looking at his friend. Nat can only imagine what's actually going on in his head – all those fuzzy memories, as he's trying desperately to remember when exactly did he manage to make a mistake.

“You got hit by a giant pipe,” she saw the thing, and it really wasn't that small. “During a mission gone sideways. Your rookie, on the other hand, saved the day – called for extraction and even got the thing you guys where in that warehouse for.”

“God,” Ward covers his face with his right hand, probably because of the embarassment he might feel. She knows he thinks of this as a rookie mistake, not realising there was an opponent left standing, but she knows it happens to anyone at some point.

That's why they have partners.

“Fury wants to grant her Level 2 clearance. I told him it's a good idea. He wants to see you in his office once you get up.”

There's an unreadable expression on Ward's face when his hand finally moves to the bed. Even Natasha, who knows him for eight plus years can't really imagine what's on his mind.

“She was here, by the way,” she finally tells him, not looking directly at his shocker expression. “For a few hours, until I forced Clint to take her to kitchen. She was drained from the mission too, but refused to get some sleep. I believe she's still with Barton.”

Ward nodds, “Good.”

They're silent for a few minutes again, and Natasha thinks she might get a headache, just because of the weirdness of this situation. It looks like there's something on Ward's smile, but she won't know until he speaks himself – and at this point, it looks highly unlikely he will do that.

“You know, she's pretty good at all this,” she gestures to the outside of the room, “being a part of SHIELD. Being your friend.”

Ward snorts. “I'm not sure she's my friend,” he finally supplies, avoiding Natasha's heavy gaze. “I'm not sure who she is to me. But, at some point, she became important to me.”

It's the closest she can have to an actual heart-to-heart with Ward, so she takes it.

“I'm pretty sure you're important to her, too,” she says, and earns a raised eyebrow. “Oh, you know, with the entire _staying in the hospital wing with you_ thing.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

 

(As it turns out, both Ward and Natasha let their guards down – or maybe they didn't at all.

But neither of them adressed the fact, that Skye stood right outside, and heard every word that had been exchanged.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title from halsey's garden


	13. meet me on the battlefield;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all hell breaks loose in queens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all im writing at this point is skyeward and this story was supposed to have an actual plot. it probably needs reading through and i'll do just that, so please, ignore all the spelling and logical errors, i just really wanted to post this tonight eh

“Guys?”

Skye, who is currently engrossed in the cinematical masterpiece that is _Atlas of clouds,_ has an urge to ignore Pepper, but there's something in the other woman's voice that makes her get up from the couch she's occupying. Ward, whose eyes are glued to the screen since the very beginning, sends her a questioning look, while Clint and Natasha, curled up in weird position at the other end of the couch, doesn't bother to acknowledge anyone's presence.

“You might want to switch back to the news,” there's something in Pepper's voice that makes Ward, who is enjoying the movie very much, take the remote and switch back to tv.

Clint makes somehow a strangled noise when they see the news report, and Natasha straightens up in a matter of seconds.

“ _If you're just tuning in, we're on the scene of a massive building collapse in the centre of Queens. There are no official statements as the autorities are just arriving at the scene, but witnesses tell us there are hundreds of people inside. A tragedy like this, only a few months after the events on Manhattan...”_

The speaker goes quiet and some sort of alarm sounds through the room, startling not only Skye, but also Pepper. Natasha, who's already on her feet, doesn't seem frazzled by that, and Clints only shakes his head as he gets up.

Then, just when Skye manages to compose herself, Stark's voice can be heard through the comms, all business. “Wheels up at five, everyone.”

They waste no time, then. They pack up in an elevator. Natasha's already on the phone, explaining him why the hell he has to come back to the tower so quickly, change into his gear and be the goddamn Avenger even though there's – technically – no international crisis at their hands.

Clint looks kind of uncomfortable, or maybe uncertain, but Skye doesn't dwell on that, quickly leaving the elevator as it stops on her floor. Only when the doors close, she realises she doesn't really know what to do – it's not like she's Natasha, she doesn't have her own suit, her own weapon and, more importantly, it's not like she's even an actual Avenger at this point. She walk further into the room, wondering if maybe she should just sit this one out, but then she remembers the new, the shot of people running wild on the street, dust and destruction.

She never wanted anything like this to happen, but it did, and since she's in a position to help at least a few people, she could as well take it.

It's only then she notices a cardboard box sitting on the glass table. It's white, bare of any logos or notes. She approaches it slowly. It's not like someone could break inside the tower, but still, she doesn't know it's origins, and it's not like she's expecting a gift from anyone.

When she finally does open it, there's a pink post-it on top of white paper. With a really ugly handwriting, it says _For my favourite new agent – TS._ That peaks her interest. Without hestitaton, she removes the paper, only to see a neatly folded stock of clothes.

It turns out to be a tacgear, of sorts – black, tight pants, black, tight top, a bulletproof vest, leather jacket and killer leather shoes that look both practical and beautiful. She changes into it quickly, not even suprised by how perfect it fits.

She stares at the mirror for a few seconds then, forgetting about the limited time, and after consideration, makes a sloppy ponytail. It's not like she inteds to fight, but having her long hair flying around while helping civillians might not be the perfect idea.

She enters the elevator when Stark's voice can be heard again. “Avengers, assemble!”

 

–

 

When they arrive at the scene, it's a mess – Ward can't even describe it any other way. People are running around, police is barely able to contain the crowd, everyone's screaming and the choppers are flying around, filming everything from the distance.

He feels completely out of place – but, as far as her can tell, so is Skye. Clint and Natasha melt into the shadows almost immidiately, already helping people, while Steve jumps out of the quinjet, gesturing wildly at Stark. Ward turns on his comm, and motions to Skye to do the same. She nods, and he hears the exact moment she does so.

“… save as many people as we can,” it seems they catch only the end of Steve's speech. Truth being told, Ward's pretty sure he knows exactly what it was about, so it's not like he especially regrets missing it.

“Skye, you're with me,” he waves his hand at the brunette, who looks kind of lost. She smiles somehow relivied, and joins his side as he strolls past the police, showing them his badge – but it's not like he has to do so, anyway. They've seen him leaving the quinjet with the Avengers.

“Are there any rules on how to act in a situations like this?” she asks, looking up to meet his glare. His heart does a weird thing then, when their eyes meet, and he wants to punch himself. Instead, he quickly looks the other way, jumping into his specialist mode.

“Help civillians any way you can, but don't go inside the building unless you're absolutely sure you'll be able to get out.”

To clarify – he knows she has this weird powers that still aren't all that clear to him, powers she can control, but at the same, is not so sure about. He knows she had a few power trainings with Natasha, but it's still kind of a new teritory. And he really doesn't want her to get hurt.

~~Maybe not just because he's her SO and he's supposed to take care of her.~~

“I'm not a little kid,” she looks at him with this annoyance in her eyes, “and FIY: earthquakes are kind of my area of expertise.”

Ward tries his best not to roll his eyes. “I know that, yes,” his voice is all buisness, “but there's a slight possibility I would be worried about you if you got hurt.”

The statement is so shocking (for both parts), that Skye literally stands there like a moron for good thirty seconds, gaping at him with her mouth slightly open. She looks so different, in the tacgear thing Stark got her, her hair pulled in a ponytail, her hands free of any kind of gloves or restrains.

He never saw her like that before. Sure, they've been on missions, quite a lot of them over the last few months, and she wore some basic equipment when it wasn't cover, but this, her dressed as close as she can get to the actual suit, it does things to him.

Things he doesn't want to think about, thank you very much.

So he bites his tongue and places his hand on her right shoulder. What's intended to be a reassuring gesture turns out way more intimate than he intended, but he would feel stupid to walk away now. Instead, he looks her in the eyes and makes the most reassuring face he can – which is, to say, not so reassuring.

“You got this,” he tells her, matter-of-factly, before squeezing her shoulder and letting go.

He starts walking and pretends not to hear Skye, as she slightly stumbles on her feet while following him. He pretends not to notice that weird feeling in his stomach, or in his chest. Instead, he looks at the building, or what's left of it, and thinks about all those poor people still stuck inside.

“It looks like some kind of explosion,” Stark speaks through the comms. Grant looks up and sees a red suit flying around the higher, destroyed parts of the building. “It looks like the first three or four floors are intact, but it's not that stable, so it might change any time now.”

“Copy that,” Ward confirms, heading for the door.

Skye takes a deep breath behind him. “What do you think you're doing?” she yells when he's halfway through the door. Some old lady leaves the building, and he shows her one of the ambulances nearby. Skye still stands there, staring at him with something weird in her eyes.

“Trying to help?” Ward says it like it's the most obvious thing.

“You heard Stark, it may come down any minute!” she gestures to the building. A fragment of the wall hits the ground with a loud bang just a few feet away from her, but she doesn't seem the tiniest bit scared by that. “You don't have any powers or super strenght!” Skye continues, slowly closing the distance between her and the door. “You may be trained and all-business, but you're vulnerable inside!”

It kind of gets to him, the way she stares at him with concerned and something he can't quite name, how he sees she's so sure she's right. “You know I can take care of myself, rookie.”

It's the second time he's being so open when it comes to her, and it kind of freaks him out. He's suddenly not the person he's been for the last thirty years, he's someone else.

He's just about to turn around to finally enter, when she calls his name again.

“At least,” her voice is unsure now, “don't die out there, alright?”

He smiles at that. She really is worried about him. “Yeah,” he confirms, “you too.”

 

(As to be expected, Natasha was just inside, helping that older lady, and couldn't _not_ stick around to hear the rest.

She disappears inside after Ward enters, but the self-satisfyed smirk creeps on her lips until she meets another civillian.)

 

–

 

It's been hours since they got there, but Ward is running on adrenaline and a few coffes he had in the morning, so he's not even tired. He's long but checked the first four floors, with the help of Natasha and Clint, and helped some people on the fifth floor, stuck because of the huge hole in the middle of the stairs.

Most of the people has already been extracted. There are bodies, though, a whole lot of them. Nobody talks about the countless figures, lying under the blankets, with their eyes closed forever. Instead, they focus on survivors. Stark flies around, helping those lucky few on the top floors, and about an hour into the extraction, Rhodes joined him.

When there's nothing left to do for the few who can't fly (they really are missing Thor right now), they help on the ground. Due to his rusty medical training, Ward is tasked with treating the people who got away with only cuts and bruises. He watches Skye in the corner of her eyes as she takes care of people as well, talking to them, trying to calm the down. She makes phone calls to the stressed families from the phone one of the police officers gives her.

Ward notices a loose strands on her face, but she's not bothered by them. She gives him a smile now and then, when she walks around. Clint is nearby, because his medical training is less rusty than Ward's, and he asks questions from time to time. Grant has no idea where Natasha or Steve are, but he was to bet, he would say they somehow forced Tony to drop them upstairs eventhough it's totally not safe. He thinks he should be there with him, but, apparently, Clint knows exactly what he's thinking, because he shakes his head.

“You're needed here,” he mouths to him. So Ward comes back to bandaging hands, setting legs and treating cuts.

And that's why he doesn't notice it at first. He doesn't notice that Skye is gone, until Clint points out that there's a kid standing by himself, looking terribly lost. He's about six years old, by the looks of it, and Ward wonders what the hell is he doing there.

“Skye, see that boy over there?” he asks, turning around to where she was previously helping an older lady contact her family. But the blanket she'd set up somewhere during that one hell of a day is empty, aside from the phone.

Well, that's weird.

“She probably went with that older lady to find her relatives, or something,” Clint calls out to him, not looking up from the wound he's stiching on some teenager's leg. The girl looks rather uncomfortable and maybe slightly intimidated, and Ward thinks that the fact Clint is not-so-bad-looking might be the reason why.

“Yeah,” Ward trails off, looking around. But in this mess and tons of people still running, it's kind of impossible to find her. So he brushes it off, checks if the band-aid he just put on some man's arm is not loose, and stands up, excusing himself.

He walks over to where the boy stands. He looks like he's about to cry, and Ward knows he won't be able to handle that. He's no good with kids.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, squating in front of the little guy. He tries to sound as cheerful as he can, but, by the looks of it, he's not doing that great of a job. “Are you looking for someone?”

The boy, who's now barely holding himself together, nodds.

“Okay, why don't you tell me what your name is?” Ward runs a hand through his hair. He was not prepared for this.

The boy mutters something, and when Ward raises his eyebrow, he repeats: “Josh. Josh Halliwell”

“Okay, then, Josh,” Grant says, almost relieved. His last name is not _that_ common, so maybe it won't be that difficult to find his parents. But he hopes he'll just meet Skye somehwere, and let her handle the kid.

Ward's just about to ask Clint if he can manage alone for a few minutes, when there's a loud _boom,_ followed by a mini-quake. The building seems like it's not taking it so well. Various fragments of the walls fall down and Stark curses through comms.

“Shit,” Ward swears, almost dragging the kid to the street. He checks his comm. “Is everyone alright?”

“Ugh,” comes a muffled response, followed by some cracks, “I'm good.”

It's Natasha's voice. There's silence after that, and then another person chimes in.

“I'm alright,” says Steve, his voice loud, “but what the hell happened?”

Ward looks up to see both Iron Man and War Machine in the air. He looks around then. Clint sends him a questioning look, saying something he can't quite hear.

People are panicking again, running around like in horror movie. And there's still no sign of Skye. Ward repeats her name a few times, but her earpiece seems to be damaged, or simply offline. He can't pinpoint the exact location of Natasha, because the system is breaking down, and Bruce, who's running the comms from the tower, asks if they need help, saying he's on the line with Maria Hill.

But Ward doesn't really notice all that, not anymore. Because suddenly, he has this feeling. Like something is really, really wrong.

“Stark, where did that explosion happened?” he finally asks, apparently stopping someone mid-sentence, because he gets an annoyed huff in response. But then Tony says he's on it.

“It was just on the other side of the building. There's a huge hole in the street.”

And Ward, being the specialist he is, already says he's on it. He pushes the boy slightly right into some woman's open arms, and cautiously enters the site again. There are pieces of hardcore and furniture everywhere, but he's not bothered by that.

“Do you see anything suspicious?” Natasha asks him, her voice breaking down. He huffs annoyed and tries restarting his earpiece.

“Not yet,” he finally replies.

And, true to Stark's words, he can now see a hole in the street. It's not deep, it's like a floor high, and he can clearly see fundaments and pieces of the road scattered around it. Nobody seems to be in the area, since the street was evacuated hours ago, but it still doesn't hurt to look.

With a loud thud, he jumps into the hole.

It's dark, and he wonders why he didn't thought about taking a lighter. But then he realises he's been all kinds of distracted all day. So instead of worrying about the darkness, he forces himself to stay alert, and stay focused.

He only takes a few steps when he hears a sound in the distance. His hand abstently gets a hold of the gun attached to his belt.

“Hello?” he calls out, thinking it's a stupid thing to do. But he's never been in a situation like this before – he's a specialist, a spy. He does espinoge, maybe recon and undercover missions. He's not a superhero, saving civillians, even though he is technically, a part of the Avengers Initiative.

Then, there's that muffled sound again. He recognizes when it comes from and slowly starts walking in that directon, not loosening a grip on his gun. His guard is up full force and he's aware of every sound. His steps are silent, almost unadiable.

“Hello?” he repeats, this time with full force.

There's a muffled sound on his right and he can see something moving under the bit and pieces of the street just a few feet away from him.

And then, whatever – whoever – is under all of it, tries to sit up. Ward's there in an instant when he recognizes the familiar, now almost completely destroyed ponytail.

“Skye,” he gasps in shock, as he moves closer to help her get out. She cups her face then, and inspects it for bruises eventhough it's still pretty dark. She seems to be completely fine, except from maybe just a few cuts and bruises here and there.

“What the hell happened?” he asks, but doesn't really wait for an answer. He starts to get up from where he's kneeling in the dirt, but suddenly, Skye grabs his hand so hard it catches him off guard.

He looks at her, not hiding his suprise. And she looks him straight in the eyes, as she says, not missing a beat: “I saw him. I saw who did it.”


	14. you don't know what it's like;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> skye gets a phone call that pushes her to do the one thing she fears most;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i've been gone for a while and that won't change for now, sorry. my anxiety was getting the better of me and it's exams week which means i have to study, study and study (not that i'm doing it obviously). anyway, thanks for sticking with me, it really means a lot!

“He's definitely an inhuman.”

Even now, almost a week later, after hearing and saying it for what feels like a million times, it still freaks Skye out. The fact, that there is someone out there, with powers maybe a little bit similar to the ones she's possesing, but on the path of destruction.

Nick Fury, who arrived at the tower earlier that day, intimidating poor staff with his eye-patch and long coat, looks at her with an unidentified expression. She kind of stops breathing for a few seconds, because that's exactly what she was afriad of when that whole thing happened.

She was afraid that, when they saw that inhumans might do a real damage, they will start acting her differently. But the team was nothing but kind the entire week. They were still recovering from the events in Queens. Nobody got (too) badly hurt, but there were lots of ugly cuts and bruises. Skye still has stiches on her arm.

But now, when the director is eyeing her suspiciously, her fear from the previous week comes back with full strenght. He gave her the chance to join SHIELD and he may just as well take this all away from her.

And she knows she used to be happy with her old life, living in a van, being a hacktivist. But after all this months, she can't really imagine herself coming back to that life. She has a purpose now, friends, who are like a family to her.

She has Ward who's like, her friend but also… Yeah, she can't quite say what Ward is to her. Sure, he's her SO, and they've been friendly with each other for a while now, but it's a different kind of relationship than the one she's forming with Clint, Natasha or Tony.

She's not ready to let that go, and that's exactly what she's about to tell Fury, if he asks her to leave. But he's silent, instead just looking at her with his one eye. She feels really intimidated now, and dares to take a look at her other teammates.

Clint is doodling something on a piece of paper that Skye's pretty sure is a mission report, Stark looks bored, Steve reads through the file that's placed in front of him, while Natasha eyes Fury with so much force Skye almost feels like she's interrupting something.

She doesn't dare to look around to see Ward. But he is seated right behind her, and she can feel his knee on the back of her chair. It should be annoying, but in some weird way, she finds that little bit of physical contact comforting.

Especially she feels like she's about to blow up if they keep sitting in silence. It's a good thing she has control over her powers now, because if she didn't, the whole room would surely start to tremble. She has an urge to grab a bottle of vodka from where she just _knows_ it's hidden in one of the file cabinets (Stark has this weird tendency to stuff liquor _everywhere,_ and in this particular moment she's really glad that's his thing) when Fury finally speaks up.

He sounds like he's amused by the entire situation, which kind of freaks her out, because it is kind of serious. “I'm granting you with higher access,” he finally says.

She almost smiles with relief. But then Fury raises his one finger. “But I know you still have secrets. And I want to make sure you're loyal to us before I grant you with anything more.”

The statement makes the room dead silent – even Clint stops doodling and looks at Skye with that sort of pleasant curiosity. She can only wonder what Ward looks like right about now, but she can imagine his expression is similar to Natasha's, who looks like she's considering something.

“You know, everyone is allowed to have secrets,” the redhead finally says, startling Skye. Her voice is cold and she looks deadly calm on the outside. “And if we were to talk about people keeping secrets, you would be on top of that list,” she hangs it in the room at large, before adding another blow, “followed by everyone else in that room.”

The silence after that sentence is even worse than before, and this time it takes some extra courage for Skye to look at the other people. Fury's contemplating something, perhaps a good answer for Natasha. Clint's expression is dark and Skye cannot not notice Natasha's hand squeezing his knee in a reassuring manner. Steve suddenly looks ten years older and Tony's somehow amused, but at the same time kind of pissed. Skye moves her chair to get a look at Bruce, who is staring at his open hands with some sort of disgust painting on his face, and finally gathers u the courage to look at Ward from the corner of her eye. He's staring blankly into the wall behing Natasha, but it's not like he's angry, or even shocked.

He just looks like he's thinking.

“Right,” Fury's the first one to speak. He doesn't acknowledge Natasha's words, instead deciding to change the subject. He looks at Skye. “Maybe you and Stark can do a little digging, find out who was in Los Angeles and then in New York at the time of those attacks, then narrow it down to men in the younger age. Go through camera feeds, airport reports, whatever you can find. I'll send Sanders to help, but I don't know if he'll be of any use, since the two of you are probably much better with hacking than he is.”

“Actually, he knows a thing or two about computers as well,” Ward pipes up. His voice is drained of any emotion, and Skye turns around to get a good look at him. He gives her a nod and his features lighten for a few seconds.

“Huh, I didn't know that,” Fury mutters, more to himself than to Ward. “I'll be in New York for at least two more weeks, and I'm expecting an update if anything major happens.”

“Define _major_ ,” Natasha looks at her boss and it looks like she completely regained her cool.

“Let's say,” (Fury makes a duckface for half a second and Skye's not sure she didn't just imagine that, until Tony shrieks and she's sure she actually saw it) “if Stark blows up one of his new inventions, I don't want to know. But if aliens decide to invade Manhattan again, I would appreciate the heads up.”

“Yeah,” Ward sinks deeper into his chair, “you and me both.”

 

–

 

It's two days later when Skye's past comes crashing down to, apparently, destroy her present. She's in the middle of a very exhausting training mission with Ward. The days of running and punching a bag are long gone and they're now sparing. Skye's focused but she still looses almost everytime (she manages to knock him flat one time, but it's pure coincidence and maybe some lost focus on his part).

To be honest, eventhough she's still kind of sore from the Queens thing, as she refers to their extraction mission, she's actually enjoying the sparing. Hand to hand combat was always something she was curious about, and now, as she finally has a chance to train, it's even better than she expected. Sure, it is kind of painful, but there's something incredible in how you can contact with other person through punches and quick moves.

She finds it maybe a little bit similar to sex, in a way, but it's more brutal and more unexpected and she loves every bit of it.

Especially when she's fighting against Ward, when they're so close together, their skin touching, and the way he knockes her down and is suddenly on top of her, only inches between their lips. She enjoys that moments the most, although they are painful. It disappears when he gets up, showing it didn't matter to him at all, when it did matter to her.

Over the last few days, Skye finally accepted the fact that she might've developed a crush on her SO. And for a few stupid days she thought, after overhearing his conversation with Natasha, that maybe she isn't just a trainee for him either. But his actions apparently speak louder than words.

Because he has been acting weird, especially since he pulled her out of that stupid hole in the middle of Queens. They did share a few moments, especially when he examined her in the darkness and she could practially hear his heart beating so, so fast, but it ended as soon as it started. They never talk about it.

Instead, they train. Like, a lot. Like, right now.

She comes crashing down to the matress for what feels like a hundreth time, when she suddenly hears her phone ringing. Ward raises an eyebrow at her, because yes, it is, in fact, weird, that her phone is ringing. She's not in touch with anyone from her past and all the people she's on speaking terms are inside the Tower.

“You can get it, if you want to,” Ward says when it rings for the second time. He offers her a hand and helps get up. His gaze lingers a little bit too long on her, but she pretends not to notice. She has to look terrible now, all sweaty, with her head probably sticking on thousand different sides, without any trace of make up.

She grabs a bottle of water and drinks half of it, before she picks up her phone. Sure enough, it starts ringing for the third time, and it's an unknown number. The caller ID inclines it's from somehwere in China, and she feels all kind of alarms sounding in her head.

“Hello?” she finally answers, leaving the training room and closing the door behind her. The hallway is empty, but the other inhabitants of the tower know their training time and never interrupt them at least it's somehting important.

“Hello, Daisy,” the voice she hears is all too familiar. She freezes, and turns around, kind of paranoid. But the hallway's still empty, and Ward is giving her the privacy he promised.

“How did you get this number?” she whisers loudly, her voice filled with anger. She runs her hand through a messed up ponytail. “Why are you even calling me?”

“I want you to come home, sweetheart,” the voice on the other end sounds sincere, but Skye knows her tricks and is not about to fall for her bullshit again.

“I don't have a home,” her voice lacks emotions, “Especially not with you.”

It's aimed to hurt the person on the other side, but it apparently doesn't, because she doesn't stop talking for more than a few seconds. “I'm only going to ask you once, Daisy. And if you say no, I will have to ask Gordon for his help.”

Skye takes a deep breath, trying to keep her composure. “You can't _force_ me to come, you know this isn't how this works.”

“It's not,” the other woman's voice sounds like she's getting ready for a jump, and Skye knows it's nothing good. “But I believe one of our kind is terrorizing your precious home. If I had any informations regarding that particular person, it would be in your best interest to hear them from me.”

A huff escapes Skye's lips. “Why are you doing this?”

“I know you wasn't actually thrilled with me, when you left,” the voice is, once again, really sincere, and this time Skye _maybe_ believes she wants to make things right, “But I really just want to see you, Daisy. You are, after all, my only daughter.”

But then she lands her final punch.

“And, you don't want your friends to find out you've been keeping a whole community of inhumans from them, do you?”

 

–

 

“Fury was right,” Skye starts the second she enters the common area.

It's weird, because literally everyone is there – including even Bruce, who doesn't leave his lab all that often. Clint and Natasha, who've been hanging out around the tower more and more, are, once again, watching a movie (Clint seems to be really into showing Natasha all kinds of _cinematic masterpieces,_ becuase she apparently knows nothing about good movies), Steve is sitting by the dining table with a book in his hand, while Tony and Bruce are in the kitchen area, preparing somehting. Ward's sitting on the other sofa, tablet in hand, but puts it back the second Skye enters.

“About what, exactly?” Natasha asks, pausing the movie.

“I do keep a secret from you,” she takes one more breath and looks straight at Ward. He gives her a somewhat reassuring smile. “And it's about time I came clean about what I was doing during the Battle of New York.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)  
> \+ title is from katelyn tarver's you don't know (it's a really amazing song btw and you should totally check it out)


	15. strenght is our name;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the aftermath of skye's revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaand i'm back. and sorry.

Skye's actually really suprised when everyone is okay with her revelation. Even Ward, who would, under what she thinks are normal curcomstances, get quite mad at her for hiding this secret all those months, only nods in acknowledgment. Skye wonders if he already knew about everything – maybe from Fury, who seems to be in posession of every secret in the universe.

The team leaves her to her own devices after a while – Bruce comes back to his lab with Tony, who's talking something about the algorythym he's about to create to look for the people Fury told him to look for, Ward and Steve leaving soon after to spar (Skye wonders how that particular fight will end). Clint says something about the shooting range and it's pretty obvious Natasha will join him there.

That is, until Skye hears silent footsteps and turns around only to see the woman in question, leaning nonchalantlly against the counter.

Natasha is kind of a mysterious figure for Skye, even after almost five months spent in the tower. She's usually there, even though Skye knows her and Clint own a place somewhere nearby. Natasha's also the only person Skye didn't really get to know after all those months. She's pretty friendly with both Steve and Tony, Pepper likes her enough to join her for drinks once in a while, Clint is slowly becoming like a big brother she never really had and Ward is her SO. She even sometimes watches Bruce work, if he doesn't mind, and likes to hear his stories about India and the life he had before the whole Hulk episode.

But Natasha? Skye knows pretty much nothing about her, except maybe some basic facts like: she's russian, ex-KGB, in a relationship with her partner. She usually sees the Black Widow like an agent – even when she's curled up with Clint on the couch, she never lets her guard down around Skye and she always looks around with that sort of alertness in her eyes, like she can't really help it. She has this cold exterior that melts only around Clint, and ocasionally, Ward.

Sure, she cracks jokes and sarcasm fits her like a second skin (Skye feels like they might actually have a lot in common), but it's kind of everything Skye knows about the other woman. They don't spend much time together, only with the rest of the team, which is why it's so weird she decided to stay behind when everyone else left.

“I'm actually suprised Fury didn't know about all of that stuff,” the redhead finally opens her mouth. She's still in the same position, her back casually propped up the counter.

“Well, Jiaying does everything in her power to make sure nobody knows about the place,” Skye answers, her voice even. She didn't really reveal much to the team, only the need-to-know things, like the whole existance of the inhuman facility called Afterlife, hidden in China, lead by Jiyang, woman who's almost 100 years old but doesn't look a day over thirty.

There's a minute of silence, and then Natasha slowly straigthens herself and moves closer to the couch Skye is occupying. She sits on the back of it, and looks down at the other woman.

“She's more than just a random inhuman to you, isn't she?”

The question shocks Skye so much she freezes for a few seconds, and only a pat on the back kickstarts her breathing again. She raises her head to look at Natasha properly – the redhead's not judging her, there's more of a concerned look painted all over her face. Skye thinks this is one of the rare moments the Black Widow is just a normal woman, and it actually suprises her a lot.

And then she remembers the question and she suddenly feels much worse. Natasha notices that, too (because of course she does), and starts speaking again.

“I'm not going to tell anyone if you don't want me to. But I saw your face when you were talking about her. Like she did something to you and it hurt you worse than it should.”

Skye almost chokes at that. “She's my mother,” she says, her voice filled with irony and bitterness.

And then, without even controling her own actions, she sees herself telling _the_ Black Widow, of all people, her story.

“What's ironic, I don't even know much about myself, only bits and pieces that SHIELD gathered through the years. But I know that my mother faked her own death in order to run away from Hydra when I was a few months old. My father, he went nuts when he thought she died. He took care of my, sure, but with each day he was getting more and more crazy. I don't remember anything from that time, but I remember the day I was taken away from him. He became… a completely different person. As a four-year-old kid, I didn't see my father, I only saw a monster. The SHIELD team that found us, he killed all of them. Only one person survived, a female agent...”

“Yes,” Natasha interrupts her. But when Skye looks at the other woman, she looks like she's far, far away. “Agent Avery. She was Ward's menthor's wife at the time.”

Skye inhales sharply – Ward missed that piece of information. “She took me to St. Agnes'. I left the day I turned eighteen and it kind of just… went on. I met some people, slept on their couches most nights, I met a guy, we thought we would have a future, but it didn't really happened. He was the one who introduced me to the Rising Tide. So we broke up, I bought an old van and I was living my life. Maybe I wasn't happy, but it was… stable, you know?”

Natasha nods, but she doesn't say anything and Skye realises it's probably because the assasin never really had anything stable in her life – being an agent is hardly normal life.

“And then one night, someone broke inside my van and took me. I woke up tied to chair in some random hangar, and there was this guy, I didn't see his face. He threw a cristal at me. And that's how I got my powers.”

Natasha raises her one perfect eyebrow, but nods, encouraging Skye to continue her story.

“A few weeks later a guy shows up. He told he can help me. I was barely holding on at that point, so I said yes. And that's how I found myself in the Afterlife. And that's where I met my mother. She told me she knew about me, she told me she wanted to find me, but she couldn't. It was pure bullshit, but I didn't really see it that way at the time. Until she started controling me. I spent two months there. Sure, I learned how to control my powers, but I also met a guy and she made him hate me and leave, just because she didn't think he was good enough for me. It was like she wanted to have me for myself. Like those last twenty-five years didn't happen. Like she didn't leave me, like she didn't make my dad crazy by faking her own death.”

Skye knows she's blaming Jiaying for all of this, for the life she had, or the life she could've had if her mother wasn't so selfish. She's aware of that, and she thinks Natasha knows it too, the way she stares at her with this sort of unease.

But instead of commenting on Skye's story, she starts talking about something completely differeent. Natasha's suddenly far, far away, as she unfolds her own story.

“I don't remember my parents,” her voice is blank of any emotions, and it kind of scares Skye at first. But then Natasha continues, and Skye can almost feel all the hurt radiating from the redhead's body.

“I was taken when I was just a kid, barely three years old. They were training us. I still remember all the terrible things they made us do. We would just… kill each other for food, if they felt like it. There was this one woman, our teacher of sorts, and we would call her [_ма́мочк_](http://pl.pons.com/t%C5%82umaczenie/rosyjski-polski/%D0%BC%D0%B0%CC%81%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B0) _a._ She kept telling me I was the best of them all, that I was destined to be great. And I believed her, and she was the only mother I knew, I did exactly what she told me. I fought, and I killed. And then I was out of there, doing all sort of missions.”

Skye can feel her eyes go wet, but she's too invested in the story to do anything about it.

“I lost my virginity to a businessman I later had to kill. And I did lots of it, having sex and killing, during my days at KGB. They called me the greatest of their assets, the only true Black Widow. But one day, they gave me a different mission. [_ма́мочк_](http://pl.pons.com/t%C5%82umaczenie/rosyjski-polski/%D0%BC%D0%B0%CC%81%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B0) _a_ kept telling me I would do great, and so I did. I set the fire to a hospital. It killed ninety-two people, I killed ninety-two people. And after that, it wasn't so glorious. They made me do different, terrible things. I never wanted it, but I thought I had to. And then...”

“And then you met Clint.”

Natasha laughs, but it's a bitter laugh without any humor. “I got in SHIELD's radar in a bad way. Clint was sent to kill me. But he saw something, someone in me. He saw the person I never was, and he saved that person. I became better thanks to him. Clint saved my life in more ways and more times I could even imagine.”

Suddenly, Natasha wipes a single tear from Skye's chin. It's an intimate gesture, it's something Skye never really experienced. And it feels like someone really cares for her. After re-living all those terrible moments, Natasha still makes sure Skye is okay.

“That's…” the younger woman tries to compose herself. Nat only smiles with that sad smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

“I didn't tell you all of this to make you feel bad,” she tells Skye, standing up and taking a seat next to her. She seems to vulnerable. “I told you all of this because I want you to know that you're not alone. That we all made terrible things and were forgiven for them.”

Skye opens her mouth, but closes it after a few seconds, not making a single sound.

“I saw the way you were looking at Fury during that mission debrief. Trust me, he's not going to get rid of you because of your powers. They're what got you here in the first place. Never think of them as a bad thing.”

Getting a living advice from Black Widow is not how Skye imagined herself spending her evening.

“Thanks,” she finally says, after a while, looking at Natasha. She offers her a somehow brighter smile, the one that reaches her eyes. Skye thinks she never really saw the redhead's real smile. And it makes her look so much different, more human-like. Gone is the guarded agent she sees all the time.

“Anytime,” Natasha stands up and pats Skye's shoulder, “also, we should have drinks sometimes. I'd like to know more about the person who's got Ward wrapped around their little finger.”

Before Skye has a chance to ask what the hell this means, Natasha is gone.

 

–

 

Three hours after running an algorythym, Tony sends every member of his team a list of people present in both Los Angeles and New York during the mysterious building collapses.

Skye reads it during the hot bath she decided to take to relief some stress.

But then she sees one of the names, printed with dark ink on the very end of the first page.

_Miles Lydon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ title from 'we are strong' by fired earth music (the song that is so margaery tyrell i can't)  
> \+ [tumblr](http://natsclnt.tumblr.com)


End file.
